DOHA: Sebastian Coe, the man who managed the highly successful Olympic Games in London last year, has hailed the sports renaissance in Qatar and also applauded the country’s pioneering ‘Schools Olympic Program’.
Coe, who was in Qatar to witness the first leg of the IAAF Diamond League at Qatar Sports Club on Friday, talked about the sports development in Qatar in his meeting with Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Secretary General of the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC).
Chairman of the British Olympic Association and former chief of the 2012 London Games, Coe praised the ever-expanding sports calendar in the country. Qatar is set to host around 81 international, local and regional sports events in the next 11 months.
Sheikh Saoud welcomed Coe, 56, at QOC headquarters in West Bay and said both countries were keen to ‘develop relations in the sports arena’. During the meeting, the officials reviewed aspects of sports cooperation between the two countries, discussing plans and mechanisms needed to activate the mutual cooperation as part of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) they signed two years ago, QOC said.
The meeting also discussed exhaustively the cooperation in school sport, where Britain got valuable benefits from Qatar’s pioneering initiative ‘Schools Olympic Program’ which kicked off in 2007.
Britain is set to organise ‘Get Set’ program next year, following its successful organization of London Summer Olympic Games in August 2012.
At the end of the meeting, Sheikh Saoud handed over a QOC commemorative shield to Coe, a highly popular British athlete who dominated the sport in the 80s.
THE PENINSULA
