Nader Al-Masri, a Palestinian athlete from Gaza, finished 13th and last in his heat of the 5000 meters in the Olympic games in Beijing on Wednesday.

The 28-year-old’s performance was not a surprise as he hails from the teeming, impoverished and besieged ribbon of land that is the Gaza Strip (sports reporting at its finest -ed).

“I only managed to leave Gaza in April when I trained in Amman for one month, and then one month in China as part of the Olympic solidarity program,” Al-Masri told AFP.

The last time Al-Masri competed was at the Asian Games in Qatar in December 2006.

Al-Masri finished 38th out of the 39 competitors in the 5km in a time of 14min 41.10sec more than a minute off the fastest time.

“When you’re away and out of competition like this, you can’t compete against the champions,” he said.

“I am proud to represent Palestine but it’s not enough,” he added.

Al-Masri was one of four Palestinian athlehes to compete in the 2008 summer games.

You know, I grew up in Perth, Australia. Kind of a small city. I’m sure had I lived in a bigger city such as Sydney, I would have had access to the facilities necessary to turn me into a swimming superstar. Mark Spitz should be congratulating me, dammit!

By the way, in case you were wondering, the runner who performed worse than Al-Masri was Soe Min Thu of Myanmar. Damn cyclone!

Also not performing so well were Bahrain’s Rashid Ramzi (drugged by police), and Hasan Mahboob (never stood a chance with that name).