Dubai: The UAE’s bid to identify and nurture top-class international athletes received a boost this week as the UAE National Olympic Committee (UAE NOC) ratified the appointment of technical directors for eight sports in the country.
The executive board of directors of the UAE NOC agreed to the appointment of permanent technical directors at the sports associations for athletics, showjumping, shooting, judo, sailing, archery, taekwondo and fencing.
These new appointees have been tasked with spotting and developing talented sportspersons either coming through the UAE School Olympic Games or within domestic clubs. They will report directly to the UAE NOC.
The UAE NOC set out to unearth sporting talent in the country by organising the UAE School Olympic Games. Held under the patronage of Shaikh Ahmad Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, President of the UAE NOC, this year’s third edition of the annual Games attracted nearly 2,000 students from across the country competing in Olympic disciplines such as archery, shooting, swimming, fencing as well as track and field events.
The UAE NOC already has a high-powered panel of experts in place, led by Wolfgang Thiel of Germany. Also passing on their experience are former Olympic champions Saeed Aouita (Morocco), Sergei Matrossian (Ukraine), Kim Jeong-ho (South Korea) and Ramzi Baltayeb, an expert in biological sciences from Tunisia.
“The School Olympics are meant to be a platform to discover talent and fuel the Olympic dream of the UAE. Through the past three years we have identified a few promising athletes who can go on to be the main players for the country,” Mohammad Al Kamali, General Secretary of the UAE NOC, told Gulf News after a meeting in Abu Dhabi.
“This latest initiative of appointing technical directors to eight Olympic sports is meant to take the next logical step forward. We have the basic system and structure in place and we all realise that with proper long-term planning the UAE can achieve Olympic glory in more than one sport.”
The technical directors will start work immediately and find ways to get the most out of athletes already identified by the panel of experts.
