My UAE: Marwan Al Marri is fit for success

CrossFit champion Marwan Al Marri is trying to share the benefits of being healthy and fit with others.

CrossFit athlete Marwan Al Marri, 25, recently won a competition in Kuwait. Sarah Dea / The National

Marwan Al Marri is officially the fittest GCC national in the UAE when it comes to the core strength and conditioning programme CrossFit. It was his first placing at the Battle of the East competition in Kuwait earlier this month that cemented him his latest honour.

But the 25-year-old Emirati wasn’t always sporty. “It’s been almost seven years since I started my [fitness] journey,” Al Marri says. “Since then I’ve been dedicated to never being overweight, to be a role model for my country by pursuing sports on the highest level I can, to show that I can encourage my people and that stereotypes are not a good enough excuse to stop us from being healthier and fitter.”

Before he set out on his fitness path, Al Marri studied finance at the Dubai Men’s College, graduating in 2011. It was shortly after getting his first job that he decided to leave the workforce and put his efforts into sport full-time, something that shocked his family. “When I quit my first job to pursue my sports career … they were in great shock and very disappointed, but through seeing and understanding my work little by little through attending a few competitions I was in, they finally accepted it was my passion,” he says with satisfaction.

Al Marri, who took up CrossFit three years ago, says he simply wanted to “feel fit, be strong and feel fast” and feel good inside.

Sport is no longer a full-time proposition for the Dubai ­resident; he now juggles a job as a commercial manager at ­Emirates.

With his latest achievement – the result of his relentless five-day training routine – it’s little wonder that Al Marri has his sights set on qualifying for the CrossFit Games Meridian Regionals, which will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, next year.

Until then, he wants everyone to join him in getting active. “My message is change your lifestyle. Get fit, learn to enjoy the better things in life like feeling good, rather than trying to look good,” he says.