Dubai will soon have a complex in Jumeirah for the Extreme Street Sports, according to Shahriar Khodjasteh, organiser of the Dubai Desert Extreme 2001.
The Dubai Desert Extreme event at the Al Seef road in Bar Dubai is held as part of the Dubai Shopping Festival and climaxed last night with the Fono/Nokia Middle East Championship organised by the Al Akili Group.
"The response at the 31-day event has encouraged us to construct a complex for the follower of these disciplines," Khodjasteh said yesterday before the finals of the amateur class in Skateboard Championship.
"This is sort of a record," Khodjasteh claimed. He said normally the Extreme Street Sports events take place for four to five days.
"We ran it for 31 days," he said, further claiming that the event was watched by over 40,000 people over a period of a month during the DSF.
He revealed that events were held in Micro scooters, in line skating, skateboards and BMX bicycles.
Khodjasteh claimed that this was the first time anywhere in the world that events in scooters were also held alongside, skateboards. "It is a some kind of a record that we ran this event for 31 days, and included scooters too" said Khodjasteh, who is born in Iran but holds Australian nationality.
"There's a growing interest among the youth of the Middle East in the Extreme Street Sport and we are trying to give them a common platform to come together and compete," he said.
He added that their aim was to generate more interest in this kind of sport among the youth in the region. "It is not only about sport, it is also to do with the social and cultural interaction through these kind of sporting activities."
Forty-five professional athletes, mostly from Europe and Australia, demonstrated their skills in extreme street sport during the month-long event while over 50 took part in the finals of the amateur championship last night.
Safety is their main concern. "All the amateur athletes are asked to wear proper padding and helmet before taking to the ramp," he said. But professionals, he laughed, "are free to do what they want."
Although Al Akili Group and Khodjasteh have spent Dh2.5 million on the 31-day event at the Al Seef in Bar Dubai, the organiser is happy and said: "We have had a great experience and prompted us to think on the line of building a full-fledged complex."
Extreme sports become the latest hit
Dubai will soon have a complex in Jumeirah for the Extreme Street Sports, according to Shahriar Khodjasteh, organiser of the Dubai Desert Extreme 2001.