H E Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al Thani. Video still (BeIN Sports)
President of Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) H E Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al Thani has praised beIN network TV Channels winning the rights to broadcast three upcoming Olympic Games, noting that the network deserves this win.
In interview with the new Olympic beIN network, H E Sheikh Joaan added that since the start of its launch, beIN sports has had great cooperation with the Qatar Olympic Committee and there is an active partnership between the Qatar Olympic Committee and the network and this cooperation will continue in the future as the network continues to excel.
H E Sheikh Joaan referred to the Qatari participation in the 2016 Rio Olympics as good where Qatar participated with 38 athletes in various competitions including swimming, handball, weightlifting, high jump and equestrian, result was the achievement of Qatari Olympic champion Mutaz Barshim winning the silver medal in Qatar’s biggest participation in the Olympic Games and we look forward to better results in the future.
H E Sheikh Joaan expressed the hope that the participation of Qatar in Tokyo 2020 would be greater than Rio 2016.
Sheikh Joaan said that after the end of the Rio 2016, “we sat down with the federations to assess our participation in 2016. We came up with a new idea, the elite programme, which is for the players whom the Qatar Olympic Committee sees as distinguished and can provide good results for the sport with excellent results in all competitions, we have developed methods to support them.” The programme includes five federations selected according to specific criteria. This programme is open to all federations, provided that athlete attains certain level in order to be included in this programme, Sheikh Joaan noted.
He added that the programme currently includes Mutaz Barshim in athletics, Qatar equestrian team, and shooting, as Qatar has very distinctive shooters such as Nasser Saleh Al-Attiyah, Rashid Al Athba and there are young shooters who have great ambitions in order to reach the same level reached by Nasser and Rashid. “This creates legitimate competition among shooters, and legitimate competition within federations creates a good spirit that enables them to achieve results and achievements at the global, continental and regional levels.
On the cooperation between the IOC and the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC), Sheikh Joaan bin Hamad Al Thani said: “Cooperation with the IOC and other committees in the world is an effective cooperation.
An agreement was recently signed between the Qatar Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee, which will be announced in Lima, capital of Peru, in the coming period, Sheikh Joaan noted.
The agreement concerns refugees in an initiative to support the refugee athletes who have been displaced from their countries with a view to supporting them in the Olympic Games.
It was activated in Rio in 2016 for the first time and Qatar was one of the first initiators and will be among the partners who support the Olympic movement in the world and athletes who have no support from their countries because of the problems they suffer, Sheikh Joaan added.
On the development of the women’s sport, Sheikh Joaan said the women’s sport in Qatar started in 2001 and Qatari teams participated in many tournaments, even at the Olympic level there was participation of Qatari women in the Olympics in 2012 in London where the Qatar flag holder was the shooter Bahia al-Hamad, and Sarah Masood who won silver medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
On the Asian level, there were several successes achieved through the handball team. Women are part of the Qatari sports community and their presence in international forums is important for us, HE Sheikh Joaan said.
He added that Qatar has 30 community programmes, the most prominent of which is the “ be Sports person” program, which is being coordinated with the Ministry of Education and Higher Education and will be launched next month. It aims to spread the culture of sports in all sectors of society.
On the Olympic School Program, Sheikh Joaan said this aims at spreading sports awareness in schools, an idea adopted by Emir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani when he was President of the Qatar Olympic Committee. The programme began in 2007 with only eight sports and now it has reached 11 sports and the number of participants reached 27000 students at the level of the State’s schools. The program has achieved many goals, including joining talented students to the State’s clubs in all sports and has the support of the State’s leadership. It is a joint effort between the Qatar School Sports Federation and the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, HE Sheikh Joaan said.
On Qatar’s hosting the Olympic Games in the future, Sheikh Joaan said: “I think that Qatar’s hosting of an Olympic Games is a legitimate right. Going back to the past, no one was expecting Qatar to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and now we are only five years away from Qatar’s hosting the 2022 World Cup and Qatar now is full of world-class facilities.
