TWO GOOD: Sixteen-year-old Mariam Farid (left) and 15-year-old Dalal al-Ajmi are concrete examples of Qatar's focus on developing female athletics talent. The young athletes are two of Qatar's brightest hopes for future athletics success.
Sixteen-year-old Mariam Farid and 15-year-old Dalal al-Ajmi are concrete examples of Qatar's focus on developing female athletics talent. The young athletes are two of Qatar's brightest hopes for future athletics success.
Farid and al-Ajmi are members of the Qatari National track and field team and are products of Qatar’s successful athletics development system. Al-Ajmi’s talent was identified through her participation in the Schools Olympic Programme, where she has won multiple gold medals in sprint events. Farid was invited to join the National team at the age of 13 after coaches spotted her talent when she was participating in activities organised by Doha’s Aspire Academy.
The Schools Olympic Programme (SOP) was founded in 2007 following the success of Kids Athletics, a programme which begun in 2003 and saw the Qatar Athletics Federation working in cooperation with schools across Qatar to provide a structured introduction to athletics within normal class time.
Some 1,350 students in 45 schools took part in the first year and by 2007 this had expanded to 3,200 students in 80 schools. The SOP is now a multisport competition in its eighth year, with over 26,000 students from 461 schools participating in the 2014 edition.
Separately, since 2007, the Qatar Athletics Federation has been running a youth participation initiative in collaboration with the Aspire Academy for Sports Excellence. Aspire coaches make regular visits to girls’ primary schools to run both the introductory athletics programmes and to train PE staff.
As well as connecting thousands of girls to athletics for the first time, the programme has identified many talented young athletes.
These efforts are already producing success for Qatar and the pinnacle achievement so far was the participation of Noor al-Malki at the 2012 London Olympics.
Farid and al-Ajmi are already well on the road to future athletics success. Farid has represented Qatar in the 400m and 400m hurdles at international athletics meetings, taking team silver medals at both the West Asian Championships in Jordan and the GCC Championships, held earlier this year at Doha’s Khalifa International Stadium.
Too young to compete this year, al-Ajmi is on track to make her international debut at next year’s GCC Championships. However, both athletes have their sights set high—glory at the 2019 World Championships in Doha in front of a home crowd.
Dalal al-Ajmi said: “It is my dream to be a world champion but to do this in Doha, in front of my friends and family, would be amazing. I would be so proud to represent my country in my country. We are training so hard to collect medals and show everyone what we can do.
"We want to be something. It is so exciting to be part of the National team and train with them all. It really inspires me to train harder. The Qatar Athletics Federation support us so much—they are like our family and we will make them proud.”
Doha 2019 believe that the dream of competing at the IAAF World Championships in Doha in 2019 will be the best possible inspiration for this fast-growing community of female athletes in Qatar and across the whole region.
The Middle East has never hosted the IAAF World Championships before and with attitudes to women’s sport quickly changing, there is no better time to harness the power of hosting the world’s third largest sporting event and use it as a catalyst for further increased female participation in athletics across the whole of the Middle East.
“As a female athlete representing Qatar, it is very important for us to host the 2019 World Championships. We want to show the world that there are females playing sport in this country. We exist. Especially because I am a girl who wears a veil—I want to show that it is possible to play sport and represent my country.
"I want to be here in 2019 representing Qatar and I will make my country proud. It would mean so much to win a World Championship medal in front of my home crowd. Doha 2019 would really inspire people in the GCC and Arab countries, especially when they see girls competing.
"It would really encourage them to take up athletics and represent their countries. I want them to come and join us and discover athletics for girls,” Mariam Farid said.
President of the Qatar Athletics Federation, Dahlan al-Hamad said: “We have come a long way in developing female athletics in Qatar but there is still work to do. We need more female role models in athletics in the Middle East and there is no better way to achieve this than by hosting the IAAF World Championships.
"At the London 2012 Olympics, Noor al-Malki was Qatar’s first ever female representative. This was a big step forward in female athletics development in Qatar but it is our aim to go much further. Showcasing live athletics to young girls across the region will be a massive boost to our ambitions of increasing female participation in athletics from a grassroots level upwards.”
Doha is competing against bids from Eugene, USA, and Barcelona, Spain. The cities submitted their Candidature Files on September 25 and each city will receive a visit from the IAAF Evaluation Commission in October. The final decision will be taken by the IAAF Council at its meeting in Monaco in November 2014.