‘A lot more medals’ on target for UAE at GCC Games

DUBAI // The UAE Olympic Committee announced on Tuesday that it is to send a 114-member all-male team to compete at the GCC Games in Saudi Arabia this month with the aim of topping the medals table

UAE athletes will take part in all but one of the 15 disciplines at the second edition of the regional championships, which will be held in the capital of Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province from October 15 to 26.

Football will be the only field where the UAE will have no representation, but Omar Abdulrahman Al Ali, executive director of the National Olympic Committee (NOC) and director of the UAE delegation at the Games, believes the country’s sports fans will still have plenty to cheer for.

Al Ali is confident the country’s karatekas, who had won all four of UAE’s gold medals at the first GCC Games in Bahrain, will match their tally in Dammam. With expectations high that UAE participants can top the podium in equestrian, camel racing and weightlifting, Al Ali says that the team’s objectives is to improve on their haul of 21 medals – four gold, nine silver and eight bronze – won at the 2011 Games.

“We want to get a lot more medals this time, especially since we have added four new disciplines like equestrian and camel racing,” Al Ali said. “That, I believe, is to our advantage.

“We are really looking forward to doing a really good job in this championship. Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid has said we are not going there just to make up the numbers,” Al Ali said, referring to the president of the NOC.

“So, no, we don’t want to go there just to participate. We want to finish at the top of the medals table. Of course, in sports you can never predict what is going to happen, but this is our target.”

The UAE will be participating in athletics, volleyball, handball, basketball, swimming, equestrian, bowling, endurance riding, camel racing, weightlifting, judo, karate, table tennis and goalball for the visually impaired.

The organisers of the Games have decided to name the endurance gold medal after Sheikh Rashid bin Mohammed, the Diwan of the Ruler of Dubai, who passed away last month.

arizvi@thenational.ae

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