Dubai: The Dubai Sports Council (DSC) has embarked on an all-inclusive strategy that will ultimately define the country’s future in sports by the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Hosting an open debate along with Mariam Al Hammadi, Saeed Hareb, General Secretary, DSC told media representatives that the UAE’s ambition is to enhance its health and well-being while pursuing a very realistic goal of bringing home at least 20 medals from the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
Coinciding with the meeting of minds was the launch of the ‘Sports Innovation Laboratory’ that will fuel an all-inclusive concept of a unified UAE society rather than just UAE nationals in order to achieve the nation’s sporting goals.
“Sport is the best medium to break and breach all barriers. Our leaders have shown us the way with the launch of ‘UAE Vision 2021’. Our first step today is to have an open platform for sharing thoughts and ideas while keeping in mind the greater goal of bringing home at least 20 medals from the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Al Hammadi told media.
“One of the most asked question is whether we are willing to tap talent from the expatriates. My answer to that is that we have already been reaching out to an all-inclusive community especially through the ‘Dubai Pulse’ programme that has managed to address the more pressing problems of obesity and diabetes within our community,” Hareb offered.
“The ‘Dubai Pulse’ programme has been successful mainly because we have included all of the 207 nationalities that reside within the UAE. We realize that we can no longer ignore anyone if we are to aspire towards this great goal by the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games,” he added.
Hareb further stressed that they were also actively debating on how to incorporate the happiness factor with a healthy lifestyle for its residents. The project, he said, will be driven based on six core principles including events and sports tourism; happiness, health and society; women and sport, creating and developing champions; sports infrastructure and organization of Future Sports.
“We agree that we will face several problems while pressing forward with this vision. Nothing comes easy especially when we want to pursue an ambitious long-term project like this one. We want an all-round involvement starting from the parents to sports teachers, experts in various fields and past-Olympic champions,” Hareb said.
“But with everyone involved on one common platform with an openness and inflow of thoughts and ideas, we can define a fresh new strategy that will ultimately help us to achieve our target of Olympic glory through a healthy society,” Hareb added.
The second part of the project will be pursued through a one-day forum involving all partners at the Meydan Hotel on May 4.
“We have been thinking aloud so far, and the next logical step will be to have all these ideas on paper headed towards a concrete strategy,” Hareb said.
