When a shooter won an Olympic Medal in an Arsenal T-shirt

Kuwait's Abdullah Al-Rashidi, 57 beat all odds against his age and won the bronze medal in the Men's Skeet event at the Tokyo Olympics on Monday. This was Rashidi's second Olympic medal.

While the Kuwaiti is being celebrated for the fact that he just won an Olympic medal despite being 57 years, one must not forget that he awed the Brazilian crowd back in Rio Olympics in 2016 for a completely different reason. Al-Rashidi won his first Olympic medal in the Rio Olympics which was a bronze medal as well. The Brazilian crowd, being ardent football fans, did what was expected of them, talk about football.

They spotted that Al-Rashidi sported an Arsenal Jersey in the shooting events in 2016. Rashidi, who was playing a neutral flag of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) due to a ban by the IOC. As IOC athletes are not provided with any set kit, athletes are allowed to don any kit they want to and Al-Rashidi went for an Arsenal kit.

Speaking in Rio, Al-Rashidi said that he is not aware of Arsenal or what it means. He added that the shirt might have been his son's who evidently is a football fan. Al-Rashidi might not be aware that Arsenal are nicknamed the Gunners, which metamorphically does makes sense as Kuwait is indeed an ace gunner (or shooter?)

Other than his Arsenal shirt in the Skeet finals in 2016, the Brazilians also were in awe of his moustache so much that they started calling him 'Bigode' meaning moustache in Portuguese. Tokyo 2020 Olympics do not have fans in the stands due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, but they would have come out with another nickname as well for Al-Rashidi as he proves age is just a number.