Dima and Lama Hattab (born December 31, 1980) are twin sisters from

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

best known for being the first female

ultramarathon An ultramarathon, also called ultra distance or ultra running, is any footrace longer than the traditional marathon length of . Various distances are raced competitively, from the shortest common ultramarathon of to over . 50k and 100k are bot ...

runners in the Middle East to take part in the endurance race

Marathon des Sables ''Marathon des Sables'', or MdS, (French for Marathon of the Sands, also known as Sahara Marathon) "Facing Africa NOMA : The Marathon des Sables", FacingAfrica.org, 2010, webpage: -->pages/mds/default.asp FA8. is a six-day, ultramaratho ...

Biography

Born in the Jordanian capital

Amman Amman (; ar, عَمَّان, ' ; Ammonite language, Ammonite: 𐤓𐤁𐤕 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''Rabat ʻAmān'') is the capital and largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 a ...

, the Hattab twins started their running career when they were 18 years old. Their potential ability came into light after only one year, when they took part in the 1999 Dead Sea ultramarathon. In the half-marathon competition, Lama came in 3rd, while Dima finished 4th. Being women, in addition to their choice of such a difficult sport, made them well-known figures in the Middle East, appearing in many shows on famous channels like Jazeera sport and Orbit, and also making the cover page of various magazines. But in spite of the fact of their fame, the Hattab twins are facing a lot of difficulties in taking their career to the next level, mainly due to the lack of sponsorship in the Middle East for such endurance sports, especially for women. Sometimes they had to depend on their own financial resources, and other times they were lucky to get an unlikely sponsor at the last minute. {{DEFAULTSORT:Hattab, Dima and Lama Jordanian female long-distance runners Living people 1980 births Twin sportspeople Jordanian twins Female ultramarathon runners