JUSTINE EYES DOHA RETURN - Qatar Olympic Committee

Q1.08.news
Equestrian events
raise Doha’s profile
Show Jumping’s new gala series, the Global Champions
Tour, with a total of Euro 5.5 million in prize money at stake, is
coming to Qatar, April 10-12, 2008
The Doha Grand Prix will mark the first stage of this year’s
Global Champions Tour, and is the only event in the series to be
hosted in the Gulf region.
The series was created by the Eurosport Group and features some
of the world’s most prestigious outdoor show jumping events rolled
into a single championship.
As well as Doha, the Tour will travel to Germany, France,
Monaco, Portugal, the Netherlands, Italy and Brazil, and feature
some of the world’s leading riders, including Rodrigo Pessoa, Ludo
Philippaerts, Ludger Beerbaum and Beezie Madden.
The riders will be competing for a minimum prize money of
Euro 400,000 at each Grand Prix.
Hosting the Doha Grand Prix represents a major success for the
Qatar Olympic Committee, which has made the event an integral
part of its seven-year strategic plan.
The 2008 Global Champions Tour will showcase Doha to the
world as live transmission is sent throughout Eurosport’s network
reaching over 110 millions homes across 59 countries.
Qatar, of course, has a long history of hosting equestrian events
on a national, regional and international scale.
Doha plays host to a number of international FEI sanctioned
events throughout the year and in 2008 will host the 16th Qatar
International Dressage Championship, February 25 - 27, and the
Qatar 8th International Equestrian Championship Jumping Event,
March 6 - 9.
The Qatar Show Jumping national team showed their talent
earlier this year when they participated in the Dubai, Abu Dhabi
and Al Sharjah Championships, including the Arab League Show
Jumping Championship qualifiers for the World Cup finals.
The Doha 2006 three-day event gold medalists Awad Al
Qahtani, Rashid Faraj Al Adba, Ali Al Merri and Abdullah Al Ujail
were among the Qatari delegation to the United Arab Emirates.
Ludo Philippaerts is a star name on the Global Champions Tour.
Winning the anti-doping race
Qatar has become a shining light in the promotion of antidoping
measures in the Gulf region.
In December, the Qatar Olympic Committee signed a landmark
agreement with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to
establish a regional anti-doping laboratory in Qatar.
Sheikh Saoud said that the agreement with WADA was the first
step in making Qatar a permanent centre of anti-doping services
for the Gulf Cooperation Countries.
But the move has also added impetus to a concerted campaign
by the Qatar National Anti-Doping Commission to educate and
prevent cheating in Qatari sport.
The QOC established the Commission on March 7, 2005 to
carry out the anti-doping function on behalf of the governing body
and act as the independent anti-doping organisation for Qatar.
This year, the Commission is planning to celebrate a National
Anti-Doping Day for the first time on March 7 as the focal point of
numerous initiatives across professional and amateur sport in Qatar.
The Commission has already conducted education programmes
among Qatar’s sporting community - a move that included an
anti-doping workshop for the Professional League Committee in
January - and many other educational activities are planned for the
future. The workshops, seminars, meetings and lectures are directed
at athletes, coaches, physiotherapists, administrators and all other
supporting personnel. They aim to highlight five main issues:
anti-doping rule violation; the international standard of testing; the
therapeutic use exemption; the rights and the responsibilities of the
athletes; and the standard of the result management.
The Commission has begun anti-doping testing in Qatar’s
football, basketball, handball and volleyball leagues – and now the
message is getting across to every sector of society.
In January, the Commission launched an art competition for
children aged eight to 12 in the ‘City Centre’ mall to pass on the
message to the public about the hazards of doping and how much
doping is against the spirit of sport.
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