Between November 13 and 22, Abu Dhabi will host the World Triathlon Multisport Championships 2026, bringing together thousands of athletes from around the world.

Most of us know the basic triathlon formula: swim, bike, run — ideally without collapsing somewhere in between. But the Multisport Championships go well beyond the classic three. Across ten days, athletes will compete for world titles in six disciplines, from cross triathlon and aquathlon to long-distance triathlon and aquabike.

And every world champion needs a medal. To design this year’s, the organisers turned to our long-time Sandy Times friend, Ibrahim Zaki. So, how did the opportunity come about? What does it actually take to design a medal that thousands of athletes will travel across the world to compete for? And could Ibrahim ever imagine returning to the Championships not as the artist behind the medal, but as an athlete himself?

Over to Ibrahim to tell the story in his own words.

My name is Ibrahim Zaki. I am a Palestinian multidisciplinary designer and Arabic calligrapher based in Dubai. Alongside my own artistic practice, I collaborate with brands looking for ways to connect with the region — and the kind of work I do naturally fits into that space. It has a clear regional reference, but visually it can also be quite abstract, allowing it to speak to a much wider audience.

And that is what eventually brought me to designing the World Championship medal — although the route there was much more accidental than you might expect.

It started when I was becoming more involved in sport myself. My trainer, Rebecca, happened to also be working with Factor 31, the agency handling the project. We got talking one day, I told her what I do, and she became interested in my work.

That conversation eventually led to a collaboration with On Running for Sole DXB, where I developed a series of Arabic calligraphy-led designs across tote bags, stickers and other applications. More importantly, it introduced me to a side of the sports world that immediately felt natural — the energy, the people, the community around it. It was somewhere I could see my work belonging.

That experience also became the beginning of my relationship with Factor 31. So when the Abu Dhabi championship came along, there was already a shared history — and they reached out again. I suppose that is the funny thing about working independently: you never quite know where one conversation might take you. In my case, a chat at the gym eventually led to designing a medal for a World Championship.

How did the process go? Well, it started with a fairly clear observation: designing one medal for six disciplines meant the medal couldn't belong too obviously to any one of them. Rather than using a visual associated specifically with swimming, cycling or running, I needed to find something more abstract — something that could represent the experience shared by every athlete competing at the Championships.

I started with the most general question: what is the experience that all of these athletes share? For me, it was the journey — moving from a starting point, through a challenge and towards a destination. That idea became a maze-like composition, with lines turning, connecting and creating something that visually resembles a route through a labyrinth.

Square Kufic gave me the structure to create it. The script is very geometric, built around straight lines and angles, so the letters can almost become a pattern. I approached it in my own way, playing with its traditional rules and rhythm until the writing itself began to resemble that journey from one point to another.

The choice worked beyond the maze too. Different Arabic scripts carry different associations: some can feel religious, historical or quite serious. Square Kufic felt more playful and, while its strong relationship with architecture suited the geometric character of the design. It also felt naturally close to my own visual language. I tend to create things with volume and presence — I am quite a loud person, so I suppose I like my work to be loud as well.

But there was another reason Square Kufic worked particularly well here: it doesn't have to be read to be understood visually. That mattered for an international Championship. If you read Arabic, there is a sentence there with an actual meaning; if you don't, you can still engage with it simply as a shape. The sentence itself came from the World Triathlon Multisport Championships organisers: “Hudayriyat. Where sport becomes a way of life, and every champion finds their home.” It connects the destination with the lifestyle and community surrounding the athletes, while visually becoming part of the composition.

And while the medal was the starting point, the design couldn't stop there. The same visual language is now being applied across merchandise and branding around the venue, which meant thinking about how it could adapt to very different surfaces and purposes — from elements for volunteers and staff to horizontal banners, vertical formats and applications for the individual disciplines. The colour of the medal helps distinguish between the different disciplines without changing the central visual language.

That is part of the creative challenge for me: you keep finding new solutions, but everything still has to look as though it belongs to the same world. It is a big project, with a large team implementing those elements, while my role is to establish the visual theme and think about all the different places it might eventually live.

And here is the confession: after spending so much time designing for the Championships, I have actually started considering competing in a triathlon myself one day. Which, if you know my relationship with running, is quite a development. I can happily walk for three or four hours, but ask me to run for 20 minutes and suddenly I don't feel like myself at all. Anything that sends my heart rate up too quickly, I tend to avoid.

So what changed my mind? I think the more committed I have become to sport — and the more immersed I have become in this world through the project — the more I have started to think: maybe I could actually do this. Gradually, obviously. I am thinking of starting with spinning and seeing where that takes me.

So who knows — perhaps next year I will come back to the Championships not as the person who designed the medal, but as one of the athletes trying to earn it. For now, I am waiting for this year's edition to see my medal hanging around the athletes' necks, meet the people who actually compete in these races and see if they manage to convince me to join them.