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Al Shaqab Endurance Junior Team ended the FEI World Endurance Championship for Young Riders and Juniors at fifth-place, in Tarbes, France, on Saturday. |
Prominent riders took part at the World Endurance Championship for Juniors, making the race one of the most challenging of the year. The competition this year saw a large participation of many Arab countries.
The particularities of the tracks, to compare it with the flat tracks commonly used in the Arab states, have been very demanding. The presence of mountains roads, hills, trees and river, pebbles roads along with dark areas in the forest had the athletes adapt their speeds to avoid any incidents.
The weather also played a big part with temperatures and humidity soaring during the competition. Only 49 athletes of the 91 presents at the departure line concluded the race.
Al Shaqab, home of the Qatar endurance national team was represented at the World Endurance Junior Championship by Sheikh Abdulla Mishal Hamad al-Thani with the stallion Quoka’in de L’Auronce, Khulood Mohammed al-Khori with the mare Quesbel du Vergnet, Abdul Hadi Hamad al-Marri with Oscar du Guide, Nasser Jumah al-Mohannadi with Halte a Tout and finally Ali Mohammed al-Hammadi with the mare, Odyssee de Cruz.
Al Shaqab team set up base in Tarbes three month’s prior to the championship in order to give the horses and the riders the time to acclimate to the area and to the weather.
Al Shaqab ended the first loop at ninth place and concluded the last loop at the fifth-place.
The winner of the competition was Khalifa Ali Khalif al-Jahouri from the UAE. Khalifa concluded the race in 6 hours and 34 seconds with an average speed of 19.96 kms/hour. MarijkeVisser from the Netherlands took the second place of the individual competition followed by the Australian rider, Erin Krahnen.
The winner of the Team race was the host-country: France followed by Belgium for the Second place on the podium, Spain reached the third place, Malaysia and Qatar finished respectively fourth and fifth.
Al Shaqab was the main sponsor of the FEI World Endurance championship 2013, as a result the last loop of the race was renamed ‘AL SHAQAB’.
“The qualification and participation of this youth team at the World junior Championship is only the beginning of what we have planned for the future. The benefit and experience gained by crossing the finishing line of a world championship is a great and valuable achievement by itself. It is a dream for many riders to achieve such performance. They are already winners for achieving so much and for bringing Qatar and the endurance sport to the forefront of the world class elite,” Al Shaqab director Fahad al-Qahtani said.