A SUMMER WELL SPENT IN TRAINING AND COMPETITION FOR ASPIRE ATHLETES
A SUMMER WELL SPENT IN
TRAINING AND COMPETITION FOR ASPIRE ATHLETES
Doha, Qatar;
Saturday 4 September 2021.
Aspire Academy doors have remained
open during summer, with familiar sounds of pounding feet on the track, squash
balls bouncing off the wall and the pitter-patter of the table tennis ball
echoing in the Aspire Dome as Aspire athletes trained. For the Aspire graduates and student athletes
across many sporting disciplines, after a short break, normal service of
training and competition resumed at home in Qatar and abroad.
In early August, student athletes
returned to Aspire for training in sprints, jumps, fencing and squash. In
summer times of punishing heat and humidity the coaches and athletes fully
appreciated and put to good use the ultra modern cooling system of Aspire
Dome. The training camps were no just at
home in Qatar but training camps took place in Europe for table-tennis,
athletics in preparation for Tokyo Olympics, Table Tennis Arab Championships
and the U-20
World Athletics Championships.
The hard work in training certainly
paid off with 9 Aspire boys, graduates and student athletes contributing to the distinguished
results in the TT Arab Championship for teams and clubs held in in Jordan
(10-16 August 2021). The Qatari Table -Tennis team finished second in the
general ranking of the combined Arab Championship for teams and clubs that was
held in Amman Jordan after winning 19 medals, including 4 gold medals in the
team, singles, and doubles competition.
Qatar Olympic Committee sent fifteen athletes to represent
the country in seven different sports at the Tokyo 2020 Games this summer and
four of them were Aspire Academy graduates. Mutaz Barshim, Ashraf Elseify,
Abubaker Hayder and Musab Ali continuing the legacy of an Aspire presence at
the biggest sporting stage on the planet that begun at London 2012 Olympic
Games. Mutaz
went into this summer’s Tokyo Games as Qatar’s first double Olympic medal
winner following his bronze in London and silver in Rio and the “Billion Riyal”
question was could he complete the perfect trio and win gold and the Aspire
graduate lived up to the billing clinching the gold medal.
Aspire
Academy student-athletes and graduates lined up in the U-20 World
Athletics Championships held this summer in Nairobi, Kenya (17- 22 August 2021)
and went on to produce competitive performances which will serve our athletes
with top level experience gained amongst other positives. Aspire student
athlete Saeed Al-Absi was excellent through the heats in the 110m hurdles
going all the way to qualify for the final where he narrowly missed out on
bronze medal, taking a credible 4th place. Both Mahamat Khalid
(100m) and ElHafiz Mahadi (800m) performed well and managed to reach the
semi-finals and but couldn’t get any further. Mahamat Khaled and Nayef Al Rashidi made up
the Qatar 4 x 100m relay team which was their first ever participation in this
event by the Qataris at World Junior championships. Meanwhile the Qatar national
swimming team that included Aspire Academy graduates and student-athletes won
the title of the youth groups in the Gulf Cooperation Council Championship The
28th Gulf Water Games held in Doha (19-22 August 2021).
Student-athletes, Kareem Salama (U15-U17 age group), Said Al Burchaid
(U-13-U14) and Abdulla Elgamry (U-13-U14) each won 3 golds in races ranging
from freestyle, butterfly and backstroke. Qatar national swimming team finished
second from the 6 GCC countries that competed at Hamad Aquatics Center.
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