Haider Nawzad (alternate names: Haydar Nozad, Haidar Hama Rashid) (born 20 April 1983) is an Iraqi rower. He was born in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesipho ...

to Kurdish parents. He is fluent in Kurdish, Arabic, English, and Swedish. He and his rowing partner,

Hamza Hussein Hamzah Hussein Jebur Al-Hilfi (born 1976) is an Iraqi rower. He and his rowing partner Haider Nawzad qualified for the men's double sculls event at the 2008 Summer Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Ol ...

, qualified for the men's double sculls event at the 2008 Summer Olympics in

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

through a Tripartite Commission invitation. They were last-minute qualifiers for the Beijing Games, obtaining a place when

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and ...

declined an invitation to send rowers, and the invitation was reallocated to Iraq. They are two of only four competitors on the 2008 Iraqi Olympic team. Nawzad and Hussein train on the

Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...

river in central

. Nawzad was living in Sweden, but returned to Iraq to train for the Olympics. Haider won Iraq's first medal of the 2010 Asian Games, finishing third in the men's single sculls. After this victory Adel Ali, Secretary General of Iraq's National Olympic Committee announced that his organisation was committed to providing better funding for sport in Iraq. Before the Asian Games, Haider and other members of the Iraqi squad spent a month preparing in the United States training with members of the U.S. rowing team and competing in the prestigious Head of the Charles regatta.

References

1983 births Living people Sportspeople from Baghdad Iraqi male rowers Rowers at the 2008 Summer Olympics Olympic rowers of Iraq Asian Games medalists in rowing Rowers at the 2010 Asian Games Asian Games bronze medalists for Iraq Medalists at the 2010 Asian Games {{Iraq-rowing-bio-stub