Ahmed Hamdy

Ahmed Hamdy’s international sport shooting career was relatively brief, although he did perform well at the inaugural Mediterranean Games in 1951, winning gold in both the free rifle, 300 meters and small-borne rifle, 50 meters events. He was less successful at the 1952 Summer Olympics, however, with his best event being the free rifle, 300 meters, where he was 23rd among 32 participants. He also competed in the small-bore rifle, 50 meters, three-positions and prone events, finishing 40th among 44 entrants in the former and 53rd among 58 shooters in the latter. Nationally, he was the Egyptian free rifle champion in 1952 and was runner-up in the 22 caliber competition, behind Antoine Shousha.

Even outside of the Mediterranean Games, 1951 was a busy year for Hamdy, as he graduated from King Fuad I University (now Cairo University) that year with an engineering degree and entered the Egyptian Air Force. He moved to the Engineer’s Corps in 1954 and earned an additional engineering degree from Cairo University in 1957, after which he continued to climb the officer ranks with training from both Egypt and the Soviet Union. In over two decades of service, he acquired a distinguished war record throughout the region’s many conflicts and, by the time of the 1973 Arab-Israel War, had attained a rank equivalent to Major General (لواء). During the Israeli counter-attack against the Suez Canal in that conflict, he insisted on fighting alongside his troops, despite his rank, and was killed in action. Among the many accolades and awards that he received following his death, perhaps the most enduring was the naming of a vehicle tunnel underneath the Suez Canal in his honour.