JUSTINE EYES DOHA RETURN - Qatar Olympic Committee

was promoted to Lieutenant - he is now a Major - but
his middle-distance running exploits didn’t end in 1992.
Suleiman won successive Asian Games gold medals in the
1500m in 1990, 1994 and 1998, as well as numerous Arab,
Asian and Army Championship medals.
He retired in 2000 having run in the 5000m final at
the Sydney Olympic Games – and now it’s the athletic
exploits of young Qataris and the sporting ambitions of
its leadership that inspire Suleiman.
“It’s not easy to find talented athletes, but there are
many here who have the talent and will be participants for
Qatar in the next five to six years, ‘ he says. “They all want
to become like me or Talal Mansour [Qatar’s 100m flyer]
or Ibrahim Ismail [the former Asian Games 400m recordholder],
athletes who have now retired. The population
here is very small but we also have 10 Qatari guys who will
become world-class in sprints, middle distance, jumping
and throwing and should do well over the next three or
four years.”
Suleiman feels it would be unfair to name the hottest
young athletic prospects, but applauds the QAF President
and IAAF council member Dahlan Al-Hamad, who has
helped to set up the annual Super Grand Prix and attract
the World Indoor Championships to Doha in 2010. This,
he says, has created a growing interest in athletics among
young Qatari athletes.
“The Crown Prince told me many times that
however many medals we get in the Olympics,
‘you will always be the first’.”
Future perfect
But in terms of event hosting, nothing compares to the
15th Asian Games Doha 2006, which yielded two track
gold medals for Qatar and added a new experience for
Suleiman, who was one of the six special torchbearers to
do a lap of Khalifa Stadium in front of 50,000 fans at the
dramatic opening ceremony.
Suleiman joined five other legends of Qatar sport - the
world champion bowler Salem Bu Sharbak, footballers
Mubarak Mustafa and Mansour Muftah, rally driver
Nasser Al-Attiya and fellow athlete Talal Mansour - who
carried the Flame around the perimeter of the arena,
past the athletes from 45 countries and regions who had
assembled in the centre.
Says Suleiman: “For all of us that day, it felt like we had
won a gold medal at the Olympics!”
After the incredible Opening Ceremony, the 15th Asian
Games more than lived up to his expectations. “I ran at
the Asian Games in Seoul 1986, Beijing 1990, Hiroshima
1994 and in Bangkok 1998 and, believe me, Doha 2006
was something special,” he says.
Of course, for Suleiman, who retired from competitive
athletics in 1999, the chance to add to his five Asian
Games gold medals on home soil came too late.
But Doha’s hosting of the world’s second largest multisports
event after the Summer Olympic Games left a
lasting impression on the former athlete.
“We did a great job. We have fantastic facilities and now
all the people in Qatar talk about sport - my father, my
grandfather, my brother. It’s excellent.”
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