Rafed Al-Masri
| Personal information | ||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Rafed Ziad El-Masri | |||||||||||||
| National team |
 Germany Syria
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| Born |
10 August 1982 Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Lower Saxony, Germany |
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| Height | 1.92 m (6 ft 4 in) | |||||||||||||
| Weight | 88 kg (194 lb) | |||||||||||||
| Sport | ||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | |||||||||||||
| Strokes | Freestyle | |||||||||||||
| Club | Zehlendorfer TSV von 1888 | |||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Rafed Ziad El-Masri (Arabic: رافد زياد المصري; born August 10, 1982) is a German former swimmer of Syrian origin, who specialized in sprint freestyle events. He is also a four-time national champion for Germany, and a gold medalist for the men's 50 m freestyle event at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, representing his ancestral homeland Syria.
El-Masri was born and raised in Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Lower Saxony, by Syrian immigrants, whom his father studied geology at the Clausthal University of Technology. He moved to Berlin at the age of five, where he eventually started swimming. At the peak of his sporting career, he had won several titles at the national championships for both long and short course swimming events. He also held a dual citizenship for Germany and Syria, which made him eligible to compete in future international competitions.
In 2004, El-Masri became a member of SG Neukölln swimming club in Berlin, and also, trained for the German national team. However, he decided to compete instead for the Syrian Olympic team at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. He qualified for the men's 50 m freestyle event, and swam in the eighth heat against four other competitors including Croatia's Duje Draganja, who eventually won the silver medal in this event. El-Masri finished in fourth place of his assigned heat, with an impressive time of 22.58 seconds. He nearly missed out of the semi-final rounds, as he placed eighteenth in the overall rankings, tying his position with two-time Olympic champion Alexander Popov of Russia, and Johan Kenkhuis of the Netherlands.
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