“I started very late. Back then, sports were not part of our culture. I was the first and only athlete in my community. It wasn’t part of our everyday life,” Ali recalled.

Growing up in Soudah, his family did not have a television at home. “There were no distractions, just a simple life in the village,” Ali remembers. Outside of school, he spent most of his time working in the wheat fields, tending to the crops on his family’s land, and helping his father on the farm.

“We went to the valley every day, coming and going and covering long distances on foot.” Ali said these hikes and the hard work involved in farming laid the foundation for his early childhood athletic training.

“It required both physical stamina and energy,” he said. “But as I got older, I wanted to challenge myself more, so I started doing other activities and then I got into sports.”

Now a father of nine, he won his first marathon in 1985 and has been encouraging his children to follow his example ever since.