Olympics: 'Slow Moe' Speeds To Gold

LONDON, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th August, 2016) - Olympic gold medallist Mohamed Sbihi's lack of enthusiasm for his family's barbershop business earned him the nickname 'Slow Moe.' The 6ft 8in-tall rower has now set the record straight after showing everyone that he is in fact no slouch. Sbihi stormed to gold for Britain with the help of colleagues Alex Gregory, George Nash and Constantine Louloudis, following in the footsteps of iconic rowers Sir Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent. Yet Sbihi may never have even started rowing had it not been for a strange turnaround of fate. In an interview with The Press Association London, Sbihi's father, also called Mohamed, explained how his son almost quit rowing immediately. "He was very tall for his age, a very big boy.

Somebody from a rowing programme went around to his school and they noticed the size of him - they said he should be rowing. "So at the age of 14 he was going to his first rowing class.

But I don't think he fancied it because he turned to walk out the moment he got there.

"It was only because a PE teacher recognised him and knew he was supposed to be training instead that he told him to go back.

I think that if the PE teacher hadn't been there at the same time as my son, would he have ever got involved in the sport?" The 60-year-old also explained how his son disliked being taken in to work at the family business, a local barbers in Westminster. "I used to bring him here on Saturday mornings when he was about nine, to learn how to cut hair but he wasn't interested in this.

He wanted to play football. "Eventually he became too tall to use the broom properly. And he didn't like early mornings either, so my customers used to call him Slow Moe." Originally from Marocco Sbihi could have the merit of promoting the sport in the country after his Olympic victory. "He's made us so proud.

And he's made his grandma in Morocco proud too. She said he's made rowing famous over there."