Dubai: The President of the UAE National Olympic Committee (UAE NOC) has called upon the country's athletes to strive for excellence to ensure a memorable Olympic Games in London this summer.
"I am happy and pleased with the results our sportspersons have achieved, particularly our national squad that qualified to an Olympics in football for a historic first time. I wish all of our sportspersons the best of luck and hope they can excel and go for gold in London," Shaikh Ahmad Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum said in his opening remarks at the UAE NOC Annual General Meeting held at the Emirates Towers Hotel late on Monday.
"As officials and sportspersons we all have one single goal and that is to strive for excellence all the time," he added.
Earlier, Shaikh Ahmad chaired the meeting that witnessed the endorsement of several key decisions, particularly the setting up of the National Olympic Academy (NOA) from the beginning of next month.
"We have Shaikh Ahmad as our guide and patron and he has always been around to show us he cares. His presence at tonight's meeting means a lot to us as officials who have been entrusted with administrative duties, and to our sportspersons who will be motivated to give their best for the UAE," Yousuf Al Serkal, Vice President of the UAE NOC, later told Gulf News.
During the course of the meeting, the general body ratified the inclusion of several new associations under the umbrella of the UAE NOC, while also accepting proposals for competing at various international and regional competitions.
The competitions include the Asian Beach Games in Hayanj, China (April 16-22), the Asian Under-16 Youth Games in Sakha, Russia (July 4 to 16), the London Olympics (July 27 to August 12) and the Gulf Beach Games in Saudi Arabia (November 9 to 16).
Later, Shaikh Ahmad congratulated representatives from key UAE NOC sponsors such as BP, Procter & Gamble, TNT and Commercial Bank of Dubai, and key media partners including the region's leading English newspaper, Gulf News.
