Meet the Emirati kitesurfing champion making waves after bouncing back from injury

Mohammed Al Mansoori was given a new lease of life by surfing after spending years recovering from bike accident

UAE kitesurfing champion Mohammed Al Mansoori is looking for fresh recruits to grow the sport he loves. All pictures by Antonie Robertson / The National

Mohammed Al Mansoori dreamed of being a footballer before a biking accident led him to change course

The sportsman sharpened his surfing skills by watching Youtube videos

Mohammed Al Mansoori is keen to give back to a sport that has brought him great happiness and success

The kitesurfer spent a month in a coma after his biking accident

The Dubai resident found himself at ease among the waves

Mr Al Mansoori is eager for more Emiratis to try out the sport for themselves

Mr Al Mansoori took up surfing after years of rehabilitation

The surfing stalwart wants to see a Gulf-wide league set up

Mohammed Al Mansoori feels blessed to have discovered kitesurfing

After picking up tips on the internet, Mohammed started testing the waters of competition in 2014

Mr Al Mansoori is eager for others to share in his surfing passion

A self-taught kitesurfing champion who battled back from serious injury to rule the waves has sent out a rallying cry to fellow Emiratis to take up the sport.

Dubai resident Mohammed Al Mansoori was in a coma for a month and faced years of painstaking rehabilitation when he shattered both of his legs in a biking accident at the age of 18 in 1999.

Before, Mr Al Mansoori was a football player at a local club and a runner. He practised extreme sports like parkour and pulled stunts on skateboards and rollerblades.

His energetic, thrill-seeking lifestyle was brought crashing down in an instant, leaving him with a fight to walk again.

“The accident left me in a coma for around a month, but when I woke up I could not walk for years. I was new to biking – I had just been practising for one month when I had the accident,” said Mr Al Mansoori, now 40.

“There were so many broken bones in my legs and injuries to my face and body."

After several years of surgery and plenty of hard work, he got back on his feet – and then onto a board.

"I don’t remember what my thoughts were at the time, but I definitely never thought I would become the UAE’s kitesurfing champion.

“Before the accident I wanted to become the best football player in the world, that was my goal; but now I assure you that God took what I loved the most from me, football, and gave me something better.”

While on the long road to recovery, Mr Al Mansoori said he happened upon kitesurfing by coincidence.

“I couldn’t drive, so I used to ask my driver to take me to the beach, and there I used to watch the kitesurfers.

“I did not know much about the sport. I just enjoyed watching them.”

The joy turned into a fierce passion, and, as soon as he could walk again, Mr Al Mansoori bought a kiteboard and went to the beach.

“I wasn’t walking well yet, so I couldn’t enter the water. I just trained on the sand for four months.

“I asked the other surfers for safety instructions, and I taught myself from Youtube videos.

“I tried to go down in the water slowly, because it was still difficult for me to jump.

“Then, I started following international champions on the internet to learn how they do it.

"I fell in love with the sport because it involves a lot of high jumps, and I was always fond of extreme sports”.

His friends, already well-versed in kitesurfing, would challenge him whenever they saw him at the beach.

“So I started to learn new moves, to challenge them back.”

He started to take the sport more seriously when a friend called on him to put his skills to the test in a championship event in Al Mirfa in 2014.

“He said he would beat me, and I ended up beating him, and all the local guys who were competing," said Mr Al Mansoori. "This was my first competition.”

The following year, he took part in Red Bull’s kitesurfing championship in Bahrain and finished in second place.

Since then, he has toppled the best Emirati kitesurfers in a number of local championships, and claimed victory in the Qatar Open Kiteboarding championship in 2015 and 2016.

However, he said he still has many objectives.

“My dream is to become the Gulf champion, but there is no GCC championship yet. There are separate competitions in some countries," he said.

“I wish for more Emiratis to practice the sport, so we can have a stronger presence and start more regional leagues.

“And I just want them [young Emiratis] to try it, because it is the best sport I have ever tried and they will never understand what I mean until they try it themselves.”