BEIJING // As the UAE faces the prospect of leaving the Beijing Olympics without a single medal, the country's top Olympics official has admitted that hopes of attracting more young Emiratis into sport and challenging for future international honours rest on changing their "easy-living culture". "The Emirati youth has little interest in sport compared to young people in other countries, with the exception of football," Ibrahim Abdul Malik, the secretary general of the UAE's Olympic Committee, said from the Chinese capital.
"The life of the people has changed. Emiratis have a soft and easy lifestyle. But sport is not easy - it is hard." Mr Malik said sport failed to register in the culture of young Emiratis. "It is really important to realise this," he said. "The UAE youth prefers to go to the shopping centre rather than to do sport. "This is the big challenge for the future. We have to work really hard to make sports a part of their cultural life. Then we can get a good pool of talent from which to select the best to represent the country."
He acknowledged that the UAE's policy for sport at school was also in need of improvement. "We have also not had a good policy for building sports in schools," he said. "This is incredibly important. If sport is to become a part of the national culture we must get children into it from an early age, so they grow up with it." In Beijing, the last UAE athlete with a theoretical chance of winning a medal is Sheikha Maitha bint Mohammed bin Rashid. She has been handed a tough draw against the double world tae kwon do champion and 2004 Olympic bronze medallist Hwang Kyung-seon on Friday, diminishing the UAE team's hopes of gaining a medal.
"We had a gold last time and now people are expecting we get the same result," Mr Malik said. "But we may well not get any medals this time." He and the rest of the UAE International Olympic Committee recognise the need to build on the country's showing in China, where the national squad numbers eight, more than at any previous Olympic Games. "Now we need to think about the individual sports and choose the ones we can build up," he said. "Some sports are unsuitable. Sprinting, wrestling or basketball, for example, are almost impossible. Emiratis just don't have the right physique for such sports. Instead, we need to target sports such as shooting, cycling and sailing."
One possible quick solution - offering citizenship to talented athletes and following the example of Qatar and Bahrain - was a sensitive matter for the politicians to decide upon, Mr Malik said. He is concentrating his efforts on targeting individual emirates to encourage them to improve on their sporting participation. He says Abu Dhabi, Dubai and increasingly Sharjah are leading the way. Meanwhile, Mr Malik said a dearth of medals did not mean the country could not be proud of its showing.
Obaid Ahmed Obaid set a new national record in his 100-metre swimming freestyle event, while the sprinter Omar Juma al Salfa ran a season's best in the 200-metre heats, despite finishing last. "Our players did their very best and put in some good performances by UAE standards," he said. "All the athletes are getting good experience here. You need to work very hard and you need a bit of luck, too."
tspender@thenational.ae