Egyptian Decathlete Atto Hamdy Discusses Career and Injury

Have you ever wondered what your sportspeople were like before they became so famous? Every once in a while, we bring to you a new athlete and give you a glimpse of their real life of national stars including their career journey, achievements, injuries, and retirement.

Today, we’re bringing in the details of an Egyptian athlete who lives in Doha, Qatar. His name is Abdelrahman Hamdi M Adbulrahim, widely known for his stage name Atto Hamdy.

Atto Hamdy is a nine-times National Decathlon gold medalist, has chosen to turn to business work for his post-athletic career, and he is straddling both worlds properly too.

His pervious profession in field and track national championships has built him an enormous reputation as an athlete star, but his flourishing business choices today are what’s making him glow brighter in the sky. Atto Hamdy has started his multiple businesses before he founded Fitness Freak, which he is now co-managing with his partner Nadeem Mohammed.

Atto Hamdy, who retired from athletics in 2015, is currently running a number of business projects in Doha. He is also a part of athletic projects that aims to help aspiring athletes become as successful as Atto Hamdy in the future.

Regardless of how busy his schedule can be, Atto Hamdy always finds some time for himself, where he trains his body by squeezing every ounce of performance out of it to improve himself.

While his company lists Atto Hamdy as founder and co-manager, his LinkedIn tells us that that he is a Sport Affairs Consultant and an excellent Investments Advisor, as well as a Researcher on Human performance enhancement projects.

Atto Hamdy tells us that, “ultimately, I decided to do business after retiring because it’s something that I am very good at.”

“Although it has only been 5 years since, I think my business has made a huge leap forward, and I can’t say that it is unexpected, because every detail was studied very well before anything took place for my business,” he says.

For his achievements, Atto Hamdy undoubtedly has won the Qatari national champion in track and field between the years 2005 – 2014, with an amazing decathlon PB score of 6537 points.

At the beginning of his career, Atto HAmdy was only 14 years old when he became Decathlon’s champion in Qatar.

Nationally, he has won every possible trophy as a sprinter, and it probably would have continued for longer, if not for his injury. His long list of trophies came to a sudden halt due to a devastating injury which became a core reason for his hiatus.

Atto was injured during the testing phase, he dislocated his knee in the beginning of the season of 2007 – 2008. His injury included a full knee dislocation, a full ACL rupture, and the meniscus was torn at the knee-cap.

“It is the worst injury you can ever imagine in an athlete’s life,” Atto Hamdy says. It took him three full years between 2008 and 2010 to recover from such a severe injury, and to recover from the rehabs of the operations performed on him as well.

After recovery in 2011, Atto Hamdy scored a new championship in Qatar, and in 2014 he got the highest PB score of his entire career. It was such a heartwarming comeback.

With a decade long career from 2004 to 2014, and despite the injury, Atto Hamdy was winning all the national championship in Qatar. He won over eighty gold medals in just Decathlon, over twenty colored medals in different athletic events such as 4 x 100m relay and sprint relay.

“My goal is just to push even further after retirement,” says Atto Hamdy. “Because living a healthy life is the lifestyle that I have chosen for myself to live. Since 2015, I feel like I am way stronger and faster than how I was during my competing days. The level of my physical capability increased significantly, like my speed and endurance and strength are just better.”

“I still look like a professional sprinter because in a way I still am. Although I have retired the game, I push the performance boundaries to their limit regularly when I go to train. I’m keeping myself in a professional level just like how I used to be when I used to compete with the track and field national team.”