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Brussels, Aug 2025
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You will probably be as amazed as I was when I realised that both the Houari sisters were athletes. I recently featured 18yr old Kayla, the shot-put sports girl. She chose this sport after trying out several others. However, Kayla's 16yr old younger sister Soraya Houari very quickly came to the conclusion that she liked the explosiveness of the 60m sprint and the hurdles.
From when she was 6 till about 11yrs old, Soraya was busy with gymnastic competitions. She used to be practicing around 12h/week. She remembers that the pressure in that sport was just too much. She found herself watching her sister train at the Forest Athletic Club and decided to try that out to be with her friends and keep herself busy moving. So at 10yrs, she started Athletics. She did it along with her gymnastics as a hobby with Gilbert, her sister's coach.
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| Brussels, Aug 2025 |
When her family shifted to Tubize, outside Brussels, she joined the Club at Nivelles and started at the School of Athletics. Her coach Jean-Claude was passionate about what he did and could quickly see who had good potential and for which sport. She started going to train once a week and soon discovered that she was talented at sprinting and increased her sessions to 3 times a week. Her coach knew how to motivate her by finding the right words of encouragement. She found herself good at all 5 compulsory disciplines of the 60m, hurdles, javelin, shot-put and the 1000m. Of all the disciplines she found that her capacity and her talent to run the 1km was not the best. So, as she came to the level of Cadet (title of an athlete of 13-14yrs), she stuck mainly to what she was good at. The 60m sprint and the hurdles. I had no idea that depending on the season the sprint has a different distance. When we usually see these fast races on TV, we see the 100m race. But in fact it's 100m in the summer and 60m in the Winter.
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| Brussels, Aug 2025 |
Soraya started participating in Belgian Championships and training 4-5 times a week. I must take a moment and salute Soraya and Kayla's parents who dropped them off and picked them at these multiple trainings several times a week. Each car journey was at least 20 mins away and I'm boggled by multiplying their own commutes daily to and from work and then getting the two girls to different trainings several times a week. Let's also remember that Belgium is usually dark in the evenings for several months of the year and training and competitions happen the whole year. Soraya says that on top of that her parents never made them feel any sort of pressure. If they were enjoying it, the parents were there for them.
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| Liege, Aug 2024 |
She soon realised that in order to be good at the sprint and hurdles, she would need to walk a difficult path full of consistency, training & learning technical tricks. For the start of these races for example, the muscle work and sprint resistance are essential. Her usual training involves running uphill 200m. This way when you actually race, running 100m is less than the physical effort that you're used to. Soraya constantly feels her mind and determination are getting stronger as she needs to be resilient and not give up. The results make her proud and her body feels tired from actual effort which she highly appreciates.
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| Liege, Aug 2024 |
Every training day is important according to my young interlocutor. Every Thursday is her 'Start' or 'Depart' training working on the starting blocks. When I ask her what athletes think of when they are waiting for the gun to go off, she says that she thinks of really wanting to give it her best and wants to succeed. Her body follows suit with all the training ingrained in its system. Of pushing herself in the block with maximum speed. When she is sprinting, she remembers to push into the floor and lift her knees as high as possible. When I talk about admiring how the sprinters' and runners' feet reach their butts while they run allowing for a nearly wheel-like motion, she seems to agree. That smile and those eyes agree with me.
Soraya was on National TV this year as she participated in the Van Damme memorial athletic championship in Brussels that is held every September. She was part of a preliminary program that showcased the best young athletes of Belgium in an international setting. 8 teams of the fastest 4x100m runners were chosen amongst all of the clubs in Belgium. Her team participated and were the 6th in this huge contest. Wearing the BIB of her local club, standing in lane 1 and warming up and watching all the big names in international athletics was indeed a great experience for her and her teammates. The internal transition from the warm up zones to the stadium to actually participate brought with it a lot of exciting stress and buildup. I see this as a precursor and a glimpse into her potential future sphere. We shall hear more about Soraya for sure. Her coach Noel Leveque also surely feels the same.
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| Perwez, April 2025 |
She is now moving from Scolaire 1 to Scolaire 2 which is a category of sports training pertaining to age. She ended her season by participating in the LBFA Championships in the end of August unfortunately with an injury. She has the 7th spot in the best 8 runners in 100m hurdles in the French Speaking section of Belgian Athletics.
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| Braine l'Alleud, May 2025 |
When I ask her if she gets a feeling of being compared to her older sister Kayla, she says that since their sports are finally different, it's not something that has happened to her. There is nearly nothing in common except the hard work they both put in. She continues that her best friends are all in the sport because they go on sport's trips together during vacations travelling to Spain or France. They all face the same challenges and have the same passion and interest for sports. So sports people generally have an understanding of what it takes to reach where they have and in general the movement is to lift each other up by keeping a healthy level of competition.
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| Louvain la neuve, 2023 |
On the other hand, even though she has great friends at school, she thinks that those friends are more the kinds that come together due to a common style or interest in music. It's harder for someone who doesn't practice sports like her to understand why she would give up fun activities to do her training. It was a very interesting discussion in which Soraya pointed out that our sports friends can be very different from us and the training and participation is the common factor that brings us closer. Even if everyone's personalities are very different, the barrier gets dropped because of the common links of discipline and hard work. On the field it's just the person and the activity they're engaged in. There are people of all ages in her club and she could interact as easily with someone who's 30 and someone who is 12 in a few minutes.
Athletics is a year-round activity. Soraya says that when you don't do well in a training or competition even if you feel great, it really affects you mentally. But, she still thinks she wouldn't be the sunshine she is if she didn't train. She would find it hard to study well. She wouldn't prioritize her time as well as she does now. She wouldn't know what consistency teaches and how to have a never-give-up attitude. Yes, like her sister she cannot go out at night for a sleepover at a friend's place. Yes, she needs to make a good and healthy food choice even if she gets back home at 9pm after training and a whole day of school before that. She accepts all that. It's her way of life now, she says. Without training, she talks of how it feels strange. As she waits for her injury to heal, she finds this a perfect moment to think about the ups and downs of competition. Because that's what high level sports gives you. A rollercoaster of ups and downs including victories and losses. A series of emotions to be held, controlled and conquered. Young Soraya loves exactly that, the series of achievements and lessons learnt like these that make her appreciate and savour her greatest moments even more.
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| Forest, 2021 |
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| Nivelles, Feb 2025 |
#Belgianathletics #trackandfield #athlete #sprints #hurdles #youngathlete #hopeforBelgium #vandammememorial2025 #vandammememorial #purejoyofsports #trainingeveryday #consistencyforresults #injuries
Read about Soraya's sister Kayla's athletic journey here
Parents contribution is rightfully highlighted👌
ReplyDeleteThank you 🤩 very much. Yes, parents do a lot for their kids.
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