From Thames to Tigris World Olympic Dreams

World Olympic Dreams. He trap -- Matthew Pinsent travels to Baghdad

hoping to speak to Iraqi hopefuls MUSIC PLAYS # A little bird told me

that you love me That you love me # And I believe that you do I believe

# This little bird told me I was fallin' Really fallin' # Fallin'

for no-one but you No-one but you # There's no use denyin' # I might as

well confess # Of all the boys I know, dear # I'm sure I love you

best # The little bird... # Henley Royal Regatta. The world's oldest

rowing race, held every year on the Thames over a mile and 550 yards

It is in many ways the epitome of the sport of gentlemen. The world's

fastest rowers battling it out in front of the wealthiest sporting

crowds. A showcase event for a sport that Britain has come to

But that success does not come easy. Today's generation of elite rowers

spend hour after hour doing this. The funding is immense, some �27

million has been poured into the sport in pursuit of a gold at

London 2012. It is going to be so close! And I know how that pays off.

Moments I can ever forget. A whole country tuned in to see British

rowing holding its head high, again It is clear watching the current

crop of athletes that not much has changed. The equipment, the

dedication, all too familiar. The London Olympics is motivating

hundreds of athletes to do things So when the chance came as part of

the World Olympic Dreams series to follow the lives of athletes around

the world, I could not resist tracking down some kindred spirits.

So we set about trying to find two rowers training somewhere in the

world to come to the London Olympics. What I had not banked on

is exactly where they lived. But it was not a hard choice to

make. I had to meet the Iraqi rowers, Haider Rashid and Hamza

Before I set off, I had to go under intensive training for hostile

On the way into town from the airport, I was given a quick lesson

in Baghdad reality. The road where we are now used to be the most

dangerous road in the world. Some sobering thoughts about the bad

times in Baghdad. We are still coming here and training and we saw

bodies in the river. And to top it Baghdad - a city of some 7 million

people. Plagued by war for decades. At its heart, one of the ancient

rivers of the world, the Tigris. Flowing from the mountains in

Turkey until it merges with the Euphrates at Basra and then out

into the Gulf. 1,800 kilometres from source to the sea, it brings

life and greenery to the heartland The river has been a constant in

It is supposed to be the acid test of a rower, that you cannot look

out on a piece of water without thinking what it would be like to

row on that. There might be litter everywhere, helicopter gunships,

but from a rowing point of view, Recent times have seen such trauma

and chaos for this country. The young here have grown up knowing

little but war and it shows in the So when that Saddam Hussein statue

came down, I was probably on training camp in Italy watching it

on television, a year away from the Athens Olympics. Life for me since

has moved in lots of different directions but never for one moment

did I think I would be standing In the heart of the English

countryside, a stately venue for a We are just going in, we need to be

quiet now. Stop. Stop. Journalists wanting to venture into war zones

are put through their paces on a course. Hostile environment and

first aid training. We enact the worst possible scenarios. Dodging

imaginary gun fire and treating the This might look contrived but it

feels all too real. There's a new bomb out called the magnetic bomb.

Craig Summers is the person you turn to in the BBC if you're

heading somewhere dodgy. We met up for a last minute briefing. As you

can see, the yellow spots on the map are incidents. OK. How recent

are they? That is in the past week. Week? Yes. Some of these happen and

you will not even know they have happened. But you will hear

explosions at night or during the day. Small arms fire every now and

again. So it is part and parcel of going to Baghdad. This is an extra

large flak jacket. It does up at the side. It weighs about 10 kilos.

A quick visit to see Emma in the news-gathering safety stores for

some vital equipment. You'll need a I'm pleased to say that that was

the last time I put my flak jacket on. From the moment I arrived in

Baghdad it stayed in the car, but This road you're on now used to be

the most dangerous road in the world. But the Americans have gone

and the interchanges are now manned by the Iraqi police. All along the

central reservation there used to be palm trees. Then when the

Americans came in, they chopped the My first taste of Baghdad traffic.

I'm here to meet Hamza Hussein, a quarter of the whole Iraqi team at

the Beijing by Olympics. He and his partner, Haider Rashid, competed in

the double sculls. Nice to meet you. You had the Asian Games, and now

what is next? Now Egypt, the Arabic games. We're off to the Baghdad

Rowing Club, a place I have been imagining for months and now I'm

about to see for the first time. It should be a ten-minute journey, but

this is Baghdad. It is slow to drive. Every day in this city, jam

after jam. Road blocks and checkpoints. A convoy of huge

American armoured vehicles does not help move things along. This city

gets you nowhere fast. But it did give us time to compare rowing

calluses. Six years - gone. Just Haider Rashid had a better idea. He

is 27 and bikes his way every day from Baghdad University to the

river. The distant sound of gunfire You train here every day? Every day.

Meeting with these guys and the other rowers, we soon find a common

issue. Fitting new sculling grips is a pain whether on the Tigris or

the Thames. The last bit is always What happened here? I crashed! Hit

the bottom! The Baghdad boat house is much like any other around the

world. It may lack a few bells and whistles but at its heart it is a

It is an unavoidable fact that if you put three rowers together, it

doesn't take long before they start discussing weights. We call it a

pull-down, a lap pull-down. 300 kilos for this, plus this, plus

this. Full-time for the weights? The wars here meant that neither

had rowed until quite late on. When they started out, the club could

barely afford the oars, never mind the boats they now have. So getting

to Beijing was more than half the battle. They wrote about us that we

were rowing for the first time in the Olympic Games. Just two

athletes. One runner and the other through this. So we're just four

from Iraq. And was the Olympics everything you thought it was going

to be? We had imagined something and to see it was amazing.

Everything organised. And the Village, the restaurants. I think

sport has united all Iraqi people. This river was the frontline in so

much of the recent conflict here. After Saddam was toppled, sectarian

violence spiralled out of control. 2006/7, this year was very, very

bad. Nobody can go normally in the street. You just want to be at home.

We still came here training. We see a lot of bodies in the river. There

is one, two bodies down there. We cannot move it. We still train

three metres from it. We go from here to the body. One body stayed

there two or three weeks. I left Iraq at that time. What made you

come back? I was asked to come back for training and competing.

Hamza ever thought about going somewhere else? Hamza never think

he leave Iraq. He stay with the Stepping away from the water and

reflecting on what they've had to endure, it makes the hardship of an

ordinary athlete seem almost luxurious. It begs the question,

Here we go. Go into the street cafes and it's clear just how the

average Baghdad residents love their sport and how much Iraq needs

it. TRANSLATION: When Iraq does well at sport, it is good for our

country's reputation. It makes us feel good about ourselves. We can

forget about the killing, the bombings, the corruption, it makes

us feel happy. Iraqis are passionate about their

sport but they've only ever won one medal at the Olympics, a bronze in

weight lifting 50 years ago. Looking back over the last few

decades, what strikes you is that they've managed to get to every

game since 1980, that, despite the wars and the upheaval. There are

dark tales from the Saddam Husseineer era. His son headed the

Olympic Committee. And there were reports of torture and murder for

those who missed training or didn't So any success is something to

cherish. Haider knows that but he also has to face reality. He's

getting married. Marriage is a new phase for anyone. It may be one of

several changes for him. Iraq is his home for now. But will it offer

him the best chance to train and compete at the level he aspires to?

For the time being, his life is much like any other aspiring

sportsman of his age. A daily routine of study and training. But

he left Iraq once before because of the war and lived in Sweden. Now,

the training opportunities that another country could offer may

pull him away from the friends and the city he loves. He has a tough

decision to make. Tough, too, as going would mean leaving behind his

rowing partner Hamza. At 34, he's nine years older than Haider. He's

very settled here juggling training with his home life. He worked in

the family bakery before giving that up to row full-time. It may

not seem like much. But this generator is one of the perks that

Hamza's sporting status allows him. A luxury in a city where power cuts

are still a daily occurrance. Those hours in the weights room are worth

it, then. The noise of the generator may well drown out

anything you're trying to watch on the TV. But a cup of tea from your

mum is welcome wherever you are. For Hamza, a chance to compete in

London either with or without Haider is his main goal. He

survives on prize money and the monthly grant he gets from the

Olympic Committee. Rowing is his whole life and it defines who he is.

TRANSLATION: What I love about rowing has to be the competitions.

When we train, I think about the plan the coach has put together for

us. I think about how I can adapt it so I can get the best out of

myself. We put so much effort into it. Here in Baghdad, there are so

many challenges involved. I feel when I compete I can really show my

courage. For the younger generation of rowers here, Haider and Hamza

are more than just role models. They are proof that, despite the

odds stacked against them, they can make it. They can get to world

competitions and prove Iraq is more than just a war zone. The club

officials are in no doubt of how sport can bring this nation

together. TRANSLATION: Sport is very important here. It involves a

large section of youngsters and brings together people from

different parts of Iraqi society. From different ethnicities and

sectors. It doesn't differentiate between Arab, Kurdish, Sunni, Shia

and so on. It is an uniter of all Iraqis. We hope Iraq's getting

better. There's security. We want peace, live normally like everybody

lives. Right now, we are living normally. I go to my college, come

to my training. Normal life. He have job. Goes to his job. We hope

Iraq's getting better by security. There is no more war, no more bombs.

Be safe. That's what we hope for Hamza and Haider are too modest to

see themselves as peace makers. They are rowers first and foremost.

Dedicated enough for them to rejig this boat to fit one huge former

Olympian in. Now we come to the bit of the trip

I've been looking forward to. That's going rowing on the Tigris.

I'm going with Hamza and Haider. And another from the club. Haider

is a heavyweight. Like me. He's a big guy. He's at least fit. Hamza

is a lightweight. He's probably six inches shorter and at least three

stone lighter than Haider. We're giving away a bit of power with

that. The other guy who's coming down will be a lightweight. It will

be a bit of a mix and match four, you could say. But I'm still

looking forward to it. It's not really de rigueur to allow two of

your crewmates to do all the work. So I better help them before we go

out on the water. So many of us are fascinated by the tales of winning

that will spring from the London Games. The champions, the medals.

Iraq has only won a single bronze in Olympic history. And that won't

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 43 seconds

change in London, but that's not My time in Iraq is coming to an end.

I'll be glad to be at home and to really ask myself, was it worth it?

It's been hard work and yes, on some levels, it's been dangerous.

But workload and risk are what Hamza and Haider have to balance

every day. So I guess I owed to them. Yes, it was worth it.

Ever since I've been in Baghdad, the only time the place has ever

felt right is down by the river. Whether it is filming down that way

in the city. Or coming here to the rowing club and seeing these guys

training here, doing their preparations. It's been standing on

the bank that's looked good for the first time. When you step back from

the river, it's all much harder work. It's chaos, traffic, it's

pollution, it's corruption and of course, the violence. And then

suddenly, this afternoon, going out on to the water, all that falls