From Somalia to the World Rowing Under 23 Championships – via Cardiff

Abdirahman Hassan’s journey to the 2025 World Rowing Under 23 Championships has been a rapid one. The Somalian athlete first began rowing after deciding to give the sport a go when he started at Cardiff University in the UK a couple of years ago.

“I just started rowing because I wanted to keep up my fitness; I was very off it because I just played basketball and that was it,” Hassan explains.

Hassan became part of Cardiff University Rowing Club, representing them mainly in sweep boats at regattas in the UK including the Head of the River Race and the British Universities & College Sport (BUCS) regatta. He made a couple of attempts – the second successful – to get on to the British Rowing student development programme.

But in November last year Hassan’s rowing future took an unexpected turn, when he got a call from the Somali rowing federation, asking if he would like to represent the country of his birth.

Hassan was born in Somalia, but left the country as a small child when his parents fled to the UK as refugees to escape the Somalian civil war. He grew up in Bristol but also has family in Wales, and says “I do consider myself a lot Welsh”.

However, Somalia remains a core part of his identity.

“I have a very big connection because the place in Bristol, especially where I grew up, has a big Somali community. I feel that I’m Somali, but at the same time I do feel British because I grew up there all my life,” he adds.

But after getting that call from the federation, Hassan decided he would like to represent Somalia, and dropped out of Cardiff’s big boats to concentrate on the single scull.

“The last couple of weeks there’s been no time to relax, just get on to the water as much as I can, get on to the erg as well as studying,” he says. “I still have a part-time job, so I try and do that on the side. I try and do morning sessions, then have a break, get on the erg, then go to work, so trying to handle all three.”

He has raced the single a couple of times at local regattas in the UK, but the heats of the 2025 World Rowing Under 23 Championships will be Hassan’s first time in a multilane regatta – and also the first time any Somali has raced for their country at an international event. Hassan says he has been given warm support by his community.

“A lot of people didn’t know I was rowing, and a lot of people didn’t even know what rowing was as a sport. A lot of people at the beginning were like ‘what is this? Should you be doing it? Is this is a sport you’re going to do good in?’

“My uncles, my aunties, the people I grew up around send me text messages – ‘good luck, we’ll be watching you’. Over the internet a lot of people will be watching this race, especially because I’m the first Somali to do it,” he says.

He may not be the last.

“To be the first person to row at an international event is huge, because it’ll put a spotlight on the federation to bring out more rowers,” Hassan adds.

He has already gone a little bit viral, after being interviewed by influencer Max Klymenko – who tries to guess a person’s career while interviewing them on a ladder. The video has been viewed 1.9 million times on YouTube and 7.3 million times on TikTok, and has attracted plenty of supportive comments – including from other Somali rowers outside Somalia, who like Hassan were not aware of the existence of a Somali federation or rowing team.

While in the short term, Hassan is looking for results in Poznan, before focusing on the African Championships in November and then trying to make it into Cardiff’s top eight for the Welsh Boat Race next year, longer term his priorities have shifted.

“If I get better I do want to go to the Olympic qualification regatta in 2027. I want to go and see if I can go to the Olympics, that’s the very end goal. But at the same time I do need to go and get a job,” says the history and politics student.

Whatever happens over the course of his career, Hassan says he has got a lot out of rowing.

“It’s brought me a lot of things. I’ve kept up my fitness to a high standard, I’ve been able to make lifelong friends that I don’t think I’d have been able to make without this sport.

“At the same time I’ve enjoyed getting to know a new sport that especially someone from my background would never probably have got into,” he concludes.