Dubai: Fatima Saeed Mohammad and Ayoub Ali won the top honours in the girls' and boys' sections respectively at the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) fun run held to promote the 2014 Incheon Asian Games at the Al Mamzar area yesterday.
Fatima led her sister Amira and schoolmate Sumaiya Mubarak for a clean sweep for the Aisha Bint Osman School in the girls' 1.5km race. Ali, the Doha American School pupil, finished ahead of Walid Khalid of Shorouk School and Thani Mohammad Al Marri of Al Hosn Private School in the boys' race held over 2km.
Yesterday's run, which attracted a total of 640 children from various Dubai schools, was the seventh in a series to promote the 17th Asian Games to be held in Incheon, South Korea, in 2014. The eighth race will be staged in Phuket, Thailand, on Friday.
These races are also scheduled to coincide with the Olympic Solidarity/OCA regional forums, which are currently taking place ahead of next year's London Olympic Games. The joint forum for Central and West Asia, also presently being held in Dubai, will conclude today.
"Such runs are ideal tools to promote the Asian Games as they involve youths who are within the age group of perhaps representing their countries when the Games are staged in three years' time. These children are the future of our country," Yousuf Al Serkal, vice-president of the UAE National Olympic Committee (UAE NOC), told Gulf News.
Important step
Al Serkal was joined by Haider A. Farman, director of the Asian Games Department, OCA, and Saad Al Muhairi, general secretary of the UAE Athletics Association (UAE AA) to present the medals and prizes to the winners after the race.
"It is important that we host such an event here as it triggers everyone's imagination within the community. Be it the teachers, parents or children, the enthusiasm rubs off on all society as the continent gets ready to stage yet another successful Asian Games in a few years," Al Serkal noted.
The UAEAA official reiterated that the UAE NOC was working closely with schools in the country to ensure there is enough talent creeping through the system. "We are paying a lot of attention to individual sports disciplines such as athletics as we are aware that our youths are capable of winning in the future," Al Serkal said.
Representing the OCA, Farman insisted that all the planning work of the council and the National Olympic Committees would be in vain if adequate attention was not paid to the development of sports at grassroots level.
"This is the future of the UAE and these are the kids who will present the face of the region on the international stage," Farman said.
