Messenger - Vol. 3, No. 2, Page 16
Winter 1994
World-class-diver

     Diving is diving. Whether on the national diving team in Kuwait or on
the University's swimming team, Ali Alhasan, a freshman electrical
engineering major, says he feels the same about the sport wherever he is.
Under a program sponsored by the Kuwaiti Embassy to encourage the study of
languages abroad, Alhasan arrived in the U.S. in the fall of 1992 and spent
his first semester in Delaware studying at the English Language Institute.
Normally, the program would have ended there, and the foreign student would
have gone back to Kuwait. To the University's swim team's advantage,
Alhasan liked Delaware so much that he applied for admission and was
accepted. As a member of the national diving team in Kuwait, Alhasan has
competed in England, Holland, Yugoslavia, Germany and Bulgaria and he plans
to dive for his country in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. "It's hard to
balance training for the Olympics and school, but you get into a schedule,"
he says. Alhason and the other three divers on the University's swim team
spend about 20 hours a week in practice.
                                        --Jennifer Jones, Delaware '94