Sport | Other Sports
Top UAE official confident of medals
Ebrahim Abdul Malek, General Secretary of the General Authority of Youth and Sports Welfare, predicts at least a modest haul in events like karate, chess, shooting and bowling in next month's Asian Games in Qatar.
- By Alaric Gomes, Staff Reporter
- Published: 23:35 May 3, 2009
- Image Credit: Prasad Nair/Gulf News
- Ebrahim Abdul Malek speaks at the Soccerex yesterday.
Dubai: The UAE is confident of returning with at least a few medals from next month's Asian Games in Qatar.
"We have set our goals and we can see the possibility of bringing home at least a few medals," Ebrahim Abdul Malek, General Secretary of the General Authority of Youth and Sports Welfare told Gulf News during Soccerex 2006 yesterday.
The GAYSW is convinced after much deliberation that the UAE is among the top contenders for medals in shooting, bowling, chess and karate. "These are disciplines that we can hope for medals and it is very much our aim to ensure that our athletes do the UAE proud in Doha," Malek said.
Some of the UAE teams like the volleyball, basketball and soccer squads are already in Doha participating in the preliminary rounds before the formal start of the Asian Games on Friday.
"Our focus is not merely on individual sports. We also want our youth to do well in team sport," Malek added.
With soccer still encroaching on a major part of the sports funding in the country, Malek is still confident of turning the UAE fortunes around. "Football has an universal appeal and there is very little we can do to alter or stop this aspect in the UAE," Malek said.
"But we also want to encourage other team sports like handball, volleyball and basketball in an attempt to bring to a higher level."
And the newly-constituted GAYSW has laid down a three-year developmental programme to achieve this goal. "We have a dozen strategies before us to achieve success, and we will take a fresh look at how sport has progressed after three years in 2010," Malek said.
Malek said that a sustained youth development, women's involvement, infrastructure development, organisational capacity and sport for all are among the ingredients needed for sustained development and growth of sport in the UAE.
"These elements will take time and we feel three years is sufficient period to start seeing the success," he said.
He acknowledged that youth development in sport, especially at the school level has shown a dip in the UAE. "But we want to start somewhere and put things on track."
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