Dubai: An 82-strong squad of young UAE athletes will depart on August 3 to participate in an intensive training camp at two separate venues in Italy.
The camp is being held in co-operation between the UAE National Olympic Committee (UAE NOC) and the Comitato Olimpico Nazionale Italiano (Coni) and will be held at specialised Centres of Olympic Preparation in Formia and Rome from August 3 to 24.
The 82 athletes in the 13-14 years age group hail from four sporting disciplines: track and field, shooting, archery and fencing. The archery and athletics squads will be training in Formia along the Mediterranean coast of Lazio, while the shooting and fencing teams will be based at the Julio Aonsta Centre in the Italian capital.
The external training camp is part of the UAE NOC’s initiative to develop and prepare promising talent capable of delivering international performances for the country in the future. With this aim in mind, the UAE NOC has constituted a high-powered committee of seasoned experts chaired by 2004 Olympic double-trap shooting gold medallist, Shaikh Ahmad Hasher Al Maktoum.
Other members on the committee are Wolfgang Thiel of Germany; former Olympic long-distance running champion Saeed Aouita from Morocco; shooting expert Sergei Matrossian, from Ukraine; South Korean archery champion Jeong-ho Kim; and Tunisia’s Ramzi Baltayeb, who is an expert in biological sciences.
“We have set a long-term goal of achieving international success, starting with the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. This is the first step towards these long-term goals and all efforts will be in place to achieve success in this programme,” said Omar Abdul Rahman, who has been entrusted with the campaign to identify talent following a successful second edition of the UAE School Olympics earlier this summer.
“This initiative is as per the strategy laid down by the UAE leaders in keeping with the national strategy encompassed in ‘Vision 2021’. Our UAE NOC president Shaikh Ahmad Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum has set the guidelines by roping in some of the best former stars to ensure we achieve our target latest by the 2024 Olympics,” he added.
Last week, the UAE’s sole Olympic champion Shaikh Ahmad hailed the country’s sports structure after initiating the first step towards achieving the nation’s ‘Olympic Dream’ after the first-ever meeting of the high-powered committee.
“This camp in Italy is just the start. Each of the specialists will pick up the best athletes, who will undergo further specialised training so that they can peak by the 2024 Games. We’ve made a good start and only time will show us how we are headed,” Abdul Rahman said.
