Team Qatar Channel Swim makes history

*Seven Qatari amateur athletes dedicate achievement to His Highness the Amir and the people of Qatar

Seven Qatari amateur athletes successfully crossed the English Channel on Saturday, marking a historic feat that the team has dedicated to His Highness the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani and the people of Qatar.

Team Qatar Channel Swim now becomes the 767th relay team to conquer the busiest waterway in the world since 1875, known as the “Everest of open water swimming”.“It’s a great honour to be a part of a team that made history today (Saturday). We worked hard for this over the past few months, and today we reaped the result,” said the team founder, 52-year-old surgeon and healthcare official Dr Faleh Mohamed Hussain Ali.He noted that only a few swimmers in the world decide to take up this gruelling challenge every year.“All the team members gave their best and faced very difficult swimming conditions, but when we saw Qatar’s flag being raised at the finish point, we knew it was all worthy,” stressed Dr Ali, the oldest member of the team.Dr Ali and his teammates Dr Mohamed Jaham al-Kuwari (surgeon and head of Qatar Cycling and Triathlon Federation), Dr Jamal Rashid al-Khanji (entrepreneur and former surgeon), Dr Khalid Mohamed al-Jalham (surgeon and healthcare official), Dr Nasser Saqr al-Mohannadi (petroleum engineer and climate change expert), Fahad Mohamed al-Buenain (marketing and corporate communications expert) and Talal Abdulaziz al-Emadi (legal expert) kicked off their attempt from Folkestone near Dover on the English coast.The swim covered around 48km and lasted for 16 hours and 34 minutes on relay basis to reach the French coast near Wissant, a seaside commune between Calais and Boulogne.“I have been through some difficult challenges before, which included scaling some of the world’s highest mountains with my friend al-Buenain, but the Channel swim was completely different,” al-Emadi said. “It was extremely challenging.”