By Sports Reporter/Doha


A 14 - members Qatar squad on Wednesday will fly out to Slovenia where they will train for their next assignment, the Arab Cycling Championship to be held in Morocco in coming September.
The training camp squad includes (Moosa Khalfan, Khalil Abduljanan, Ahmed Elbourdiny, Diego hossfeldt, Mohammed Afif, Abdulrehman Jarboua, Mohammed Joudat, Khalid Elbboudainy, tareq Esmaeili ) riders.
Team coach Branko Filip and other officials will also accompany the squad for the long training camp (how many weeks or months), Magid al-Naimi, Secretary General, QCF, confirmed.
“We are looking forward to this training camp. We are confident that we will get quality training and this should help us improve our form and overall fitness,” rider Moosa Khalfan said.
“This is a fresh start for all of us. We used to have a training camp in Switzerland which also helped us immensely,” he added.
“We have many races and events coming up after Ramadan. We are aiming at improving our fitness so that leads us to improved results at top regional and continental events,” Khalfan said.
Earlier, QCF roped in Filip as new coach for the national cycling team.
Filip has been involved with cycling for over 25 years and is a well-renowned name in the world of cycling.
He was a professional cyclist in German outfit Gerolsteiner and part of Slovenian team called Krka & Perutnina PTUJ.
He also coached Ardia Mobil for seven long years besides serving as assistant coach in UCI, the world cycling governing body in cycling.
“I met Qatar national team in world cycling centre (Switzerland) last year. I have seen that they have potential to be top riders and that’s I joined QCF,” Filip said.
“Our goal is to achieve good results and seek top positions in upcoming events,” he added.
“I will also make a development program for riders in various age brackets besides helping them improve their mental and physical conditioning. For me cycling is not a job, it is a way of life.” Filip said. “We are in the process of building a strong team during our summer camps. We are ready to improve rider’s skills by all meanings possible,” he said.
QCF appointed the Malaysian Fazin Saad as a new technical secretary.
His appointment is part of the plans to increase the activity and concentration of training and maximize the participations of the riders in regional, continental and international events on the medium and the long term, as well as the dissemination and development of the game at the local level and to attract new riders in the ranks of the federation. Saad comes with more than 45 years of experience in the world of cycling. He started his association with cycling in 1966 as a professional cyclist representing his country Malaysia in number of tournaments, among them the Asian Games in 1966, 1970 and the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972 and many others.