Dubai: The president of the UAE Athletics Federation (UAE AF) expects his squad of three athletes to return with at least one medal from the 2017 Fifth Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games to be held in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.
The UAE National Olympic Committee (UAE NOC) last week cleared the names of 55 athletes in seven sporting disciplines to represent the country at the fifth edition of the Games to be held from September 17-27.
Though a total of 21 sports will be represented, including the five Olympic disciplines of cycling, equestrian, taekwondo, weightlifting and wrestling, the UAE athletes in seven disciplines will be in athletics, billiards, bowling, cycling, chess, jiu-jitsu and futsal.
Leading the UAE challenge in athletics will be seasoned former Asian champion Alia Mohammad Saeed, along with the duo of Saud Al Za’abi and Mayouf Hassan.
Alia made a sound start to the season with a 5,000 metres silver medal at the Asian Games in Bhubaneshwar, India in July. The 26-year-old followed this up with a double gold in the 5,000m and 10,000m at the Arab Athletics Championships held in Tunisia.
However, her aspirations took a jolt as an ankle injury made her pull out of the IAAF World Championships held in London earlier this month.
“She is now continuing her preparations in Addis Ababa and the idea is to hopefully get her ready in time for the Games in Ashgabat,” Ahmad Al Kamali, president of the UAE AF, told Gulf News.
“Making her skip London was my decision as we need to attend to injuries in their initial stages. We need to be extra careful in her case as she is among the few medal hopes the UAE has at any competition. So the idea now is to give her enough rest and time for recovery so that she can be there in time for Ashgabat 2017,” he added.
Now with the injury, Al Kamali said that the UAE distance runner will participate in the 3,000 metres only, while both Al Za’abi and Hassan will participate in the 800m race.
The two middle distance runners have been training at the team base in Morocco under the supervision of former Olympic champion, Saeed Aouita for the past few weeks. The athletes’ preparations, however, were hampered due to the fasting month of Ramadan.
“But they have done well to raise their levels and we expect both of them to make it to the final at least. But if one of them does land with a medal, then that would be a huge bonus,” Al Kamali observed.
“A country like the UAE has to work within the limitations we have. It all comes down to the numbers. We have but a handful of athletes and we need to work with what we have. On the other hand, some of the neighbouring countries keep on recruiting new athletes from African nations and allow them to develop. We do not have that sort of luxury,” he added.
