British gymnasts impressed with facilities in Qatar

In the recent past, Qatar has been a hot destination for international teams to set up their training camps. Be it any sport, the top class facilities on offer in Doha has made it an ideal venue for winter training programmes.
The Great Britain men’s gymnastics team, who are in Doha for a week-long training are impressed by the facilities on offer. Add to that the weather in Doha being kind at this time of the year, compared to Europe, Great Britain gymnasts are making full use of the conditions on offer.
Renowned coach Eddie Van Hoof, who has steered British gymnastics in the last two decade to success, said the decision to come to Doha was an easy one as the Qatar will host the World Gymnastics championship in 2018.  “We wanted to come and experience Qatar, as part of our longer term preparation through the World Championship. Just to get feel of the environment and the country. So when we come to World Championship it will be a comfortable and familiar feeling,” Van Hoof said.
“The hospitality has been fantastic. The gymnasium and facilities have been first rate. And everybody is having a great experience,” he added.
Van Hoof’s reign as British Gymnastics men’s head coach has seen Great Britain achieve historic success at World and Olympic level capped by five men’s artistic gymnastics Olympic medals in Rio last year. And he has already begun planning for the next cycle of Olympics.
“This year all the events are individual, no team events. We are trying to build fitness and new skill going forward. They (his team) have to shine in the European championship this year,” said Van Hoof, who kept a keen eye on 11 gymnasts going through their routines at the Qatar Gymnastic Federation’s training facility.
On the remarkable performance at the Rio Olympics, Van Hoof said:  “There were some notable performances by the younger ones too. We were thrilled to bits. Men’s team got five medals. We were ranked first in the artistic gymnastics, above Japan, China, Russia etc. We managed three medals in London to beat that was an amazingly strong achievement. And we feel we are in a good place going towards Tokyo Olympics  and we have to match that. It’s important we achieve better targets each time.”  
Ali al-Hitmi, president of QGF, said it was a huge success for his federation that top gymnastic teams are choosing Doha as their training base. “Great Britain is a very high level team and the fact that they have chosen Qatar to train makes it a big success for sport in Qatar,” al-Hitmi said.
The visiting team also trained with the Qatar gymnasts and al-Hitmi was confident that it will hugely benefit the youngsters. “We at QGF are very happy our gymnasts trained with their team. That will benefit them a lot. They have learned how to train and also the skill sets and many other things. They have also got a chance to interact with top coaches,” the president said. Al-Hitmi added more gymnastic teams are expected to come to Qatar in the coming months.