His Highness Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa, First Deputy Chairman of the Supreme Council for Youth and Sports, Chairman of the General Sports Authority, and President of the Bahrain Olympic Committee, received professional Saudi swimmer Mariam Saleh Bin Laden on the occasion of her achievement in completing the Khalid bin Hamad Swimming Challenge from Khobar, Saudi Arabia, to Salman City in Bahrain, with a time of 11:25.47 hours.
The reception was attended by Dr. Abdulrahman Askar, CEO of the General Sports Authority, and Mr. Faris Mustafa Al Khoja, Secretary-General of the Bahrain Olympic Committee.
His Highness praised the perseverance and strong will demonstrated by swimmer Mariam Bin Laden in overcoming this challenge, which is considered a remarkable sports achievement.
His Highness Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa expressed his pride in Mariam Bin Laden’s continuous success in swimming, wishing her further progress and accomplishments in her athletic career.
At the end of the meeting, His Highness Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa awarded Mariam Bin Laden the Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa Swimming Challenge Medal in recognition of her determination and outstanding achievement.
For her part, swimmer Mariam Bin Laden expressed her deep gratitude to His Highness Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa for his ongoing support and encouragement, which motivates her to continue her journey and take on numerous swimming challenges. She emphasized that His Highness’s own swimming challenge from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia, covering a distance of 42 kilometers, and which he dedicated to cancer patients ten years ago, served as an inspiration for her to take on such a challenge.
It is worth noting that Mariam Saleh Bin Laden is the first Arab woman to swim across the Red Sea to Egypt in October 2022, the first swimmer to cross Dubai Creek and swim 24 kilometers in 2017, and the first Gulf woman to swim across the English Channel, covering a distance of 21 miles in August 2016. She has achieved numerous milestones in the sport of swimming.
