GROUP POSER: Amir Khan, second left, with the Principal of Doha College, Dr Steffen Sommer, second right, and the school staff. Photo by Umer Nangiana
He interacted with the college students, answered their questions about his life and training
schedules, and inspired them with his training philosophy, writes Umer Nangiana
Urging students to work hard at education, international boxing sensation Amir Khan visited one of the oldest British curriculum schools, Doha College, Al Waab campus recently. Khan interacted with the college students, answered their questions about his early life and training schedules, and inspired them with his training philosophy of focusing on and unlocking one’s complete potential.
A British boxer of Pakistan-origin, Khan intends to have Filipino Manny Pacquiao, the eight-division world champion who recently lost a fight to the undefeated World Champion Floyd Mayweather in a fight that was dubbed as the ‘fight of the century’, as his next opponent.
And he says he would love to have the fight take place in Doha. Khan had also challenged Mayweather earlier as well.
“Mayweather got scared. Mayweather did not want to fight me. We want biggest fights in boxing. We wanted Mayweather, he retired. Now, it can be someone like Manny Pacquiao because obviously he is a world renowned fighter and I think someone like him could be amazing. And, I think it will be amazing to have a big boxing event here in Doha,” Khan tells Community during a chat at his visit to Doha College.
He says his and Pacquiao’s teams were in talks and it will be a big fight if it happens. Even, if it does not, he would love to come to Doha for a major duel. Some influential people have shown interest and Khan’s team was in talks with them to arrange a big match in Doha.
Khan hopes he would be able to finalise his next opponent within a week or so.
The two-time former world champion and British Olympic boxer is working with Penny Appeal to build a community complex for 100 orphans in The Gambia, one of the world’s poorest nations. The complex will include a community centre, school, clinic and small orphan homes, each with a dedicated foster mother to provide care and love to the children.
The British boxer also wants to give back to his country of origin, Pakistan, and is planning to open training academies in five major cities of the country. He visits Pakistan twice or thrice a year and hopes the gyms in the academies would be up and running within a year.
“What I want to do for Pakistan is I want to build five academies over there in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and other places. I want to do this for the people of Pakistan. I want to give something back to them. I want to create champions from Pakistan,” Khan tells Community.
“You never know there will be more Amir Khans coming out. It is in our blood, we are fighters. It is in our blood and we are not scared of anything,” he adds.
Khan believes even if he had started his career in Pakistan, he would have gone on to become a champion. “May be I might have had to move to some place like England to get the facilities. May be it would have been very hard, but you know when God wants to make you a champion He does that,” avers the boxing champion.
Khan said he chose to visit Doha College as it was a world class education institution. “Doha College is an extremely well respected education provider,” says Khan. “Through Globaleye, I am thrilled to be aligning myself with two top-tier organisations, Doha College and Globaleye,” he adds.
Globaleye assists clients in achieving their financial goals and similarly Doha College provides students with the environment to reach their full learning potential. The motto at Doha College is Excellence for All, Excellence from All, which reinforces a focus on identifying and unlocking every student’s potential.
“This is similar to my training philosophy as I am forever striving to further identify and unlock my boxing potential to enable me to become the very best I can be,” says Khan.
He is currently going through his paces at a training camp in Qatar in the wake of the World Boxing Championships and is a guest of the Qatar Boxing Federation, AIBA and Globaleye Qatar.
“We do know that Amir Khan is the top notch boxer and the champion. At Doha College, it is all about unlocking the children’s potential which is very much a mission behind his Amir Khan Foundation. So I asked our marketing department if it was possible while he was coming to Doha to invite him,” Doha College Principal Steffen Sommer, tells Community.
“And when we told him about the mission of Doha College and what we are all about, he immediately agreed. So we had a huge crowd cheering him and no end to questions. There were so many children, who wanted to know about his training schedule and his early life,” the principal adds.
Dr Sommer says the college hosts every now and again famous sports people and is also a home to Evolution Sports, which is very popular in Qatar, promoting sports within Qatar for expatriates and Qataris.
“We are very sports orientated and to us, it is most important because we are a highly academic school as well and there is a very close link between doing well in sport and doing well academically and we always say that healthy bodies produce healthy minds,” says Dr Sommer.
Though they do not have facilities for boxing as the British curriculum that they follow does not have boxing as a part so it is not taught as a sport, they do have huge boxing fans.
“Being a big boxing fan myself, the idea is that Amir is now here to promote the idea of boxing as a strategic sport where you can develop passion as well as strategy of the game. It is always like a one-to-one war game which strategically, is quite important as a skill,” explains the principal.
“I have just talked to Amir Khan about this, how prepares himself and it was quite interesting to hear how long it takes to develop a strategy and then to follow it through when you are virtually being fought against all the time. And that is something we would like to encourage here at the college as well,” he adds.
The school also supported Pink Day, on the day of Khan’s visit, letting students wear pink. Amir was also given a pink ribbon.
“It was a sea of pink here today. Normally, they have a school uniform, but today we said no school uniform, you can come in pink or anything pink and everybody followed, including the staff. Amir Khan, very kindly when he walked in here, said it is pink day today and we gave him a pink ribbon as well,” Dr Sommer says.
He adds that Khan had extremely positive and inspirational messages for the students, many of them members of his enormous fan base. He thanked the boxing champion and financial advisory firm Globaleye Qatar for sparing time and visiting the college.
Amir, the principal says, is an excellent role model for their students. He is extremely active in youth sports and is working through the Amir Khan Foundation to assist underprivileged children in West Africa. Amir’s dedication to sport and charity work with children is an inspiration especially as Doha College is also committed to supporting and unlocking the potential of youth, he concludes.
