Damascus-SANA
The Syrian couple, Dima Al-Dahouk and Osama Jaha, have succeeded in turning their passion for sports into a means of proving the capabilities of people with disabilities, and affirming that willpower can overcome difficulties and achieve accomplishments, despite the challenges they faced as people with disabilities, alongside caring for their son with Down syndrome.
Al-Dahouk was crowned Syria's table tennis champion for people with disabilities for ten consecutive years, from 2006 to 2015, while her husband, Osama Jaha, achieved successes in weightlifting, before later switching to volleyball to support his wife and share in her sports career.
In an interview with SANA, Al-Dahouk (41 years old) explained that she suffered a car accident at the age of three, which resulted in paraplegia in her lower limbs. However, she did not surrender to her health conditions and began practicing various sports, including physical strength, athletics, and weightlifting, before settling on table tennis, which she loved and in which she won local and international titles.
Al-Dahouk noted that she participated in 2008 in a friendly championship in Lebanon within the men's category, due to the absence of a specific category for women, and won first place. She also represented the Syrian national table tennis team at the 2012 Amman International Open Championship, winning a bronze medal in the doubles category.
Al-Dahouk and her family moved to Canada in 2017, where they initially faced difficulties related to securing suitable housing for their health conditions, adapting to a new society, as well as the costs of training and participating in championships. However, these challenges served as motivation to continue training, noting that their home turned into a training hall, while their children served as their cheering audience.
Regarding their most prominent achievements in Canada, Al-Dahouk stated that she won the gold medal in the doubles category and the silver medal in the singles category at the 2017 Canadian Championship for People with Disabilities.
She added that they continued to achieve advanced results, winning the silver medal in the doubles category in 2018, while Al-Dahouk won silver in the singles category. In 2019, she participated alone in the Ontario provincial championship and won a silver medal. Then, in 2020, she won silver in singles and bronze in doubles, before achieving gold in singles and bronze in men's singles in 2024.
Al-Dahouk is known for her activism in representing expatriate athletes and people with disabilities. She worked as an ambassador for the World Organization for Development and Peace for People with Special Needs and as a member of the committee for defending the rights of people with disabilities.
She pointed out that she and her husband launched an online training program in 2020 for people with disabilities, aimed at motivating them to practice sports and develop their technical and physical abilities. They also annually organized recreational, sports, and cultural events on the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, which yielded positive results.
In conclusion, Al-Dahouk expressed her happiness at returning to her homeland, where the beginnings and memories related to sports and championships are located, after many years of absence. She noted that their first participation after returning was at the Damascus International Veterans Table Tennis Championship, which was held recently, where she won first place, while her husband, Osama, won second place.
Source: Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA)
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