Mustafa Living His Dream
Island boy tells how he was inspired to take up athletics and will now take part in the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast
Childhood loneliness, drive, desire and several seconds of serendipity have combined to send Mustafa William Fall on a shot put trajectory that has propelled him all the way to the Commonwealth Games. Mustafa was a 10-year-old boy running around his home in Nakasaleka Village, Kadavu when he was drawn in by excited noises coming from the radio.
It was an athletics broadcast about a “boy wonder”, Banuve, who was setting the crowd alight. “How the commentator was expressing how he was performing, I don’t know, it inspired me in some way,” Mustafa says, nostalgically.
“I said, ‘Man, I should give it a try’.”
And try he did, exposing his talent and focus to local athletics officials on Kadavu Island before moving to Viti Levu- attending the same school as the boy from the broadcast, the now- legendary Fijian sprinter and rugby player Banuve Tabakaucoro. Mustafa, though, would ultimately abandon running for throwing, a decision that has propelled him all the way to the 2018 Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast of Australia.
Instead of a listener, he will soon be the legend that the commentators are describing.
“That is really special for me,” he says.
“It’s a big games, man.”
BACKGROUND
Born in the United States, the son of a Senegalese father and Fijian mother, Mustafa is tall and slight compared to most international shot put competitors.
Now a resident of Suva, he is also one of the best discus throwers in his nation’s history and has the broad shoulders, barrel chest, and powerful legs of a rugby player. Some say he could still make it professionally in Fiji’s most-beloved game but Mustafa says an individual pursuit has always been his destiny.
“It’s the only thing I feel I am good at,” he says.
“Every time I try doing something else, something just tells me, ‘Man, that’s what you should be doing’. It is where I am supposed to be. It is where I belong.
“I’ve always been on my own. This is why this is the sport for me. It’s an individual thing and I just love it but it is really a lonely road. Nothing happens unless you make it happen.”
At 22, Mustafa has already made it happen, winning gold medals at the Melanesian and Oceania Games, silver and bronze at the Pacific Games and gaining valuable Asian Indoor Athletics Championships experience.
NEW EXPERIENCE
The Commonwealth Games, though, will be like nothing he has experienced before.
Regardless of his result, Mustafa’s trajectory from a remote island to the world stage is being held up as a victory for athletics’ governing bodies and their grassroots strategies, through Australian aid’s Pacific Sports Partnerships programme and other mechanisms.
It is not only unearthing elite talent that might otherwise have gone unnoticed, it is ensuring critical nutrition, exercise and inclusion messages are reaching far-flung parts of the Pacific, like Nakasaleka Village. Nutrition and exercise are, unsurprisingly, still at the heart of Mustafa’s Gold Coast preparations.
NO LONGER A DREAM He feels both the pride and weight of expectation that comes with being a Pacific representative.
“It’s a huge achievement for us,” he says.
“I’m excited, I’m overwhelmed and I am just honoured. I want to go there and see how good they really are.”
And show them how good he really is.
That may mean a medal or a personal best, or maybe, it will mean that on some remote island, another young boy or girl will wander past a radio or television just as the commentators excitedly describe the efforts of Fiji’s shot put sensation Mustafa William Fall. Perhaps, like he once was, they will be inspired to go for gold.
“It’ll mean a lot to me and really lift my hopes,” Mustafa says. “One time I was dreaming it and now I’m living it.”