Out & about: Meeting champions of the future

In sports it is either about enjoying your status at the top or being among the young hopefuls pushing forward towards glory.

I had an opportunity to experience the second part while attending the Asian Athletic Federation (AAF) Permit Meet held at the Dubai Police Officers Club on Friday.

Ahmad Al Kamali has been a consistent worker while trying to define or set the boundaries for track and field in the UAE. In his capacity as President of the UAE Athletics Federation and more recently as one of the members on the prestigious IAAF Council, Al Kamali has consistently tried to give athletes in the UAE, and the Arab world as well, a level playing field.

And that is how last Friday's Permit Meet came to pass as young athletes mostly from the Arab region got a rather rare opportunity to attempt qualifying for this summer's London Olympic Games. The field was wide open. There were two times: the A Standard and the B Standard and the ones getting either one of these could be hopeful of running on the biggest stage of their careers — the Olympics.

In his capacity as the elite athletes' coordinator, Larry Barthlow did a great job bringing together a field of 40-odd runners who were all out to prove their credentials on the biggest stage. But at the end of one hour of on-track action, only seven — five of them from Ethiopia and one each from Kenya and Egypt — stood beaming a grin of satisfaction after they had earned the right to be in London.

But what about the vast majority that did not make it through the qualifying marks of either Standard A or Standard B? And this includes our very own Alia Saeed Mohammad and Bethlehem Desalegn Belayneh in the women's 5,000 metres.

I doubt any of them can put their heads down. For one, they still have the time: the July 8 deadline to qualify for London and a full career in track and field ahead of them, given the fact that age is still very much on their side.

"I feel proud of them all. They have done all they could tonight and only seven have made it through with the qualifying standards. But these young runners have no reason to be down as these are your champions for the future. Mark their names down on your diary and you will see them up there in a few years' time," Barthlow told me.

Honestly, I find no excuse to doubt the man.