Ghailene is a 24 year old sprint canoeist from Tunisia, North Africa. He is a 2-time Olympian having competed at Tokyo and Paris, 4-time Arab and African champion and has previously claimed victory at the ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in Portugal and Bulgaria among many other incredible achievements.
Ghailene has 2 university degrees in Sports Education and Tourism and is currently living and training in Seville, Spain with his team.
I grew up in Tunis, the capital of Tunisia. There I discovered canoe at the age of 12, after swimming throughout my childhood. Canoe became a passion for me, my evenings would be taken up by training sessions and weekends for competitions. My life took on an even bigger sports focus when I enrolled in a sports high school. From there, my passion for sports grew, with my dream to qualify for the Olympics. Once I qualified for the Olympics in 2021, I moved to Spain to train more, where I have lived for the past 5 years.
It is very connected with nature and we get to spend a lot of time in an open space where you’re paddling with your thoughts. It's also good because we do a lot of team boat competitions and with that we get to travel a lot.
Mainly qualifying to the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021 and Paris 2024 where I made it to the Quarterfinals, later I was France, England, Spain champion in different categories. Also of course becoming the African and Arab champion 4 times was a highlight.
Finishing 7th in the world in the World Championships of 2021 and also making it to the Olympics twice.
Being in full focus for the next Olympic games in Los Angeles 2028 and preparing the whole cycle as I should, as well as preparing the world championships and the world cups and also getting into new exciting projects with the international Olympic committee.
Definitely, I had an injury 7 months before the African games in Nigeria 2023 where I had to stop, spending two months without training and I struggled a lot especially mentally because I felt alone and really in a dark place, so I had to regain my strength and stay focused on my recovery first and then my strength coming back to track in time.
Give yourself time because we all deserve second chances and opportunities so we just have to keep working and believing that the right moment will come.
My mom and my dad are both sports education university professors so we had a very big advantage. I started by doing 8 years of swimming and then later on I joined canoeing where all my life changed in a good way.
To believe in yourself and to focus on your process without comparing to other people, and to work hard and have a healthy lifestyle.
I have been part of the national team since 10 years now and one of the most important thing that I did is to have a balanced life where I kept studying at the same time as training, it’s a routine that makes of you a champion in both things, also surrounding myself by positive and good people and friends.
For us as athletes, recovery is very important and PainPod products are just necessary for a better recovery after training and competitions where sometimes we don’t even need to go to a physiotherapist.
Mainly in the hard training weeks where we have to recover quickly to train hard the next day and also in competition days or between races where we have sore parts of our bodies.