Aspire Academy fetes Class of ’18 graduates

Aspire Academy celebrated yesterday the graduation of its biggest batch of 42 student-athletes to date, comprising those who specialise in athletics, gymnastics, football, football refereeing, fencing, squash, shooting and table tennis. The graduation crowns Aspire Academy’s efforts over the past 11 years and commitment to support Qatar’s significant developments in the sports field. This year’s graduates now join a long list of local sports stars, some of whom have achieved international-acclaim in their respective fields, including Mutaz Barshim, Akram Afif, Ashraf El-Seify, Fahad al-Abdulrahman, Abubaker Haydar, Ahmed Bedir Magour, Abdullah al-Tamimi, and Almoez, among others. This year’s class brings the total number of Aspire Academy’s talented and promising graduates to 325. Some of these student-athletes have proven themselves in various local and international sports competitions, winning gold, silver, and bronze medals for Qatar and were crowned championships at various tournaments. Moaaz Ibrahim is one of the most promising young athletes who joined the current graduates. He recently returned from the Asian Junior Athletics Championships, which was held in Japan with two medals – one gold and another silver in shot-put and discus throw respectively. Ibrahim is due to compete in the upcoming Junior World Athletics Championships to defend his 2016 discus throw title.In football, the under-19 Qatar national team, comprised entirely of Aspire Academy’s student-athletes and graduates, qualified to compete at the 2018 AFC Under-19 Championship, a biennial sporting event that’s due to be held in October this year in Indonesia. During the tournament, the top four teams will qualify for the 2019 FIFA Under-20 World Cup as the AFC representatives.In fencing, student-athlete Yousef al-Bader finished second in the Turkish Fencing Federation European Cadet Circuit (under-17), which featured 70 competitors from around the world.In squash, Hamad al-Amri, one of this year’s graduates, won second place at the Luxembourg Junior Open for the under-19 age group. In addition to star athlete graduates, however, some Aspire student-athletes have gone on to pursue academic careers and now play a vital part in administrative, social sciences, languages, IT, communications, medicine and other roles. The graduation ceremony, which took place at the Aspire Dome, was attended by a number of senior officials, including the guest of honour, Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) secretary-general Jassim Rashid al-Buenain. Other attendees included Aspire Zone Foundation CEO Mohamed Khalifa al-Suwaidi, Aspire Academy director-general Ivan Bravo, Aspire Academy deputy director-general Ali Salem Afifa, Aspire Academy’s of education and student affairs director Badr al-Hay, and Aspire Academy principal Jassim al-Jaber.Apart from the graduates, Bravo also congratulated four of their graduates who were not able to attend the ceremony due to their preparations for the IAAF World U20 Championships Tampere 2018: Omar Ibrahim, Khalil Badawai, Moaz Ibrahim and Saoud al-Humaidi. “You’re going to face a very difficult chapter in your life. The expectations are tremendous and that puts a lot of pressure on people. You come from a country with a small population, and that makes your ability to compete on the world stage all the more challenging and impressive,” he told graduates. “The pressure we put on ourselves can be good but overwhelming. It’s truly magnificent when Qatar makes it to the semi-finals in an Asian championship, or when one of you wins gold or finishes in the top eight at the Olympics, these are things that you and your colleagues are achieving and that’s tremendously impressive,” Bravo added.The event started with Qatar’s national anthem, sung proudly by all the attendees, followed by a recital from the Holy Qur’an by student-athlete Mohamed Saleh and a short movie highlighting the best moments from previous graduation ceremonies.