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A mere 48 hours after achieving World Championship power boating success at Key West in Florida, the Qatar Marine Sports Federation (QMSF) is making its final preparations to host this weekend’s third UIM-ABP Aquabike Grand Prix of Qatar on Doha Corniche. |
While QMSF president HE Sheikh Hassan bin Jabor al-Thani and the likes of Ali al-Neama and Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah make their way back from the United States of America, staff at the QMSF have been welcoming competitors from all over the world to Doha in readiness for an action-packed fortnight of marine sports action.
The Aquabike racing (November 13-16) precedes the Qatar Grand Prix, round four of the UIM F1 H20 World Championship, on November 21-23. Both events are being held in collaboration with H20 Racing and run under the auspices of the UIM.
Last year, the French duo of Cyrille Lemoine and Jeremy Poret, Italy’s Stefania Balzer and Slovenia’s Rok Florjancic took overall honours in the Aquabike Qatar Grand Prix in their respective Runabout GP1, Ski Division GP1, Ski Division Ladies GP1 and Freestyle categories.
The race calendar has already taken the world’s finest aqua bike riders to Viverone in Italy and to Liuzhou in China last month. The Qatar race will be the penultimate round before the world titles are decided in Abu Dhabi at the start of December.
Kuwait’s Yousef al-Abdulrazzaq, Rok Florjancic, Italy’s Alberto Monti and Serbia’s Pija Sumer head the Runabout GP1, Freestyle, Ski Division GP1 and Ski Division Ladies GP1 championship standings heading into the Doha race weekend.
Riders, officials and members of the media have been arriving in Qatar over the last two days to prepare for the first of the free practice, pre-qualifying and pole position heats tomorrow. Today (Wednesday) entrants will pass through registration and technical scrutineering and the race heats and further practice will take place on Friday and Saturday.
“We are hoping for an exciting weekend’s racing to kick start a very busy two weeks for the QMSF,” enthused QMSF spokeswoman Mona Nasser. “The officials’ offices and media facilities have been set up on the Doha Corniche, near the Sheraton, and we have a grandstand overlooking the race course to offer superb views of the action.
“Spectators are welcome on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and we are hoping that many people will enjoy the facilities and get up close and personal with the Aquabike racers.”
With temperatures still in the low thirties centigrade in Doha, the on-water action is likely to be red hot in the respective race categories this weekend.
