Cy­cling, and more so, sports in war-torn Pales­tine have un­der­stand­ably come to a halt.

This re­al­i­ty is not far-fetched, con­sid­er­ing the at­tacks by Is­rael. It has left a wake of de­struc­tion for cy­cling in the coun­try, which once had many cy­cling teams but has now been re­duced to one, the Gaza Sun­birds, which is bare­ly al­lowed to train, much less par­tic­i­pate in events.

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia Sports and the ex­tend­ed T&T me­dia en­coun­tered George Qada­do, a Unit­ed States-based rid­er with Pales­tin­ian parent­age, who ad­mit­ted he is de­sirous of not on­ly rep­re­sent­ing Pales­tine in the fu­ture but al­so of uni­fy­ing the world through sport and fos­ter­ing peace.

At 34, Qada­do was met at the Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre (NCC) in Bal­main, Cou­va, where he worked out ahead of the UCI-sanc­tioned 'Car­ni­val of Speed' and 'Speed Par­adise' events that will ped­al off at 5 pm Thurs­day. Qada­do will con­test the elim­i­na­tion, scratch and om­ni­um races to seek much-need­ed UCI points that will im­prove his world rank and even­tu­al­ly qual­i­fy him for the World Cham­pi­onships.

Qada­do is a res­i­dent of Rich­mond, Vir­ginia, in the US, who is ea­ger to res­cue his par­ents' home­land of Pales­tine from the peace it is be­ing robbed of.

"I want to have a good time here and get some valu­able UCI points. I am a US rid­er, but I am the on­ly abled-bod­ied Pales­tin­ian rid­er in the world, so I want to even­tu­al­ly rep­re­sent Pales­tine in the fu­ture. I was here for the East­er Grand Prix, and I've re­turned for the 'Speed Par­adise' and ' Car­ni­val of Speed' events. The com­pe­ti­tions in T&T are fan­tas­tic, they are world-class events," Qada­do told the me­dia yes­ter­day.

"The World Cham­pi­onships are not re­al­ly on my radar, but every­thing I'm do­ing is build­ing up to my world rank­ings. I'm try­ing to ac­cu­mu­late as many points as pos­si­ble so that when I do get my pa­per­work fi­nalised and I rep­re­sent Pales­tine, I will be in good stand­ing.

"Cur­rent­ly, in the world, there is on­ly one para-cy­cling team rep­re­sent­ing Pales­tine, and they are the Gaza Sun­birds. But right now, they're un­able to train or race at all due to the on­go­ing geno­cide. I've been look­ing around for the last two years, and I have been in close con­tact with them. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, I am the on­ly able-bod­ied cy­clist who can com­pete.

"I am a born-and-raised cit­i­zen of the US, but my par­ents are orig­i­nal­ly from Nazareth, so I am hop­ing to get my pa­per­work short­ly so I can rep­re­sent Pales­tine on the world stage."

Quizzed about what it would mean for him to rep­re­sent Pales­tine, Qada­do said, "More than a life pur­pose to show the world that Pales­tini­ans do ex­ist and we can def­i­nite­ly uni­fy the world through sport. This is a slo­gan for the Gaza Sun­birds, to uni­fy the world through sports, through ac­tiv­i­ty and find peace through that. I promised the Sun­birds that I'm hop­ing to coach them once the geno­cide is over and the siege is over. I am hop­ing that I'm not the on­ly Pales­tin­ian cy­clist for­ev­er, but it is cer­tain­ly an ho­n­our and priv­i­lege to be in this po­si­tion."

The State of Pales­tine is a coun­try in West Asia. Recog­nised by 147 of the UN's 193 mem­ber states, it en­com­pass­es the Is­raeli-oc­cu­pied West Bank, in­clud­ing East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, col­lec­tive­ly known as the oc­cu­pied Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ries, with­in the broad­er ge­o­graph­ic and his­tor­i­cal Pales­tin­ian re­gion.

Qada­do told the me­dia he wants to pro­vide the vis­i­bil­i­ty that the coun­try needs, say­ing: "I grew up from two mod­est-means par­ents who mi­grat­ed from Pales­tine to the US in the 1980s, and so I've al­ways been a lit­tle bit dis­con­nect­ed from my cul­ture. I've made sev­er­al vis­its, and of course, now, I can­not go any­more, but I'll do any­thing I can to pro­vide vis­i­bil­i­ty.

"God gave me the legs, and I will give them vis­i­bil­i­ty by just get­ting the re­sults, so that's what I am here for."