14 Feb 2024
Aspire Academy successfully organised a variety of activities as it again hosted its annual celebration of Qatar’s National Sport Day.
The Academy’s events were held as part of the celebrations organised by the Aspire Zone Foundation.
The Zone’s senior managers led by the Chief Executive Officer Mohammed Khalifa Al-Suwaidi and their families enjoyed a morning of events which reflected the NSD aims of promoting a healthy lifestyle and creating awareness about fitness among the people in Qatar.
This year’s celebrations took place outside as the Aspire Academy Dome is hosting the ongoing World Aquatics Championships.
The AZF programme included the chance to play various sports such as football, basketball and martial arts while there was also a chance for all ages to take part in some fitness exercises.
At the same time, Aspire Academy’s football and sports departments organised activities open to the general public to enjoy, with more than 1000 people of all ages participating throughout the morning.
“It was a delight to see so many people come out and enjoy themselves on National Sport Day, no doubt Qatar’s victory in the Asian Cup has been an inspiration too many to go out and pursue a healthy lifestyle,” Alanoud Al Mesnad, Aspire Academy’s Director of Marketing and Communications said.
“Once again Aspire has organised a successful and popular morning of fun challenges that embody the idea of National Sport Day in encouraging people to live a healthy lifestyle.”
“It is also an opportunity for us to showcase the excellent coaches and facilities that Aspire has. Not to forget that we are always looking for Qatar’s future champions and who knows they may have taken their first steps here on National Sport Day 2024.”
A total of 10 ‘Test Yourself’ activities were overseen by coaches from the Academy, who used their state-of-the-art technology to get the most accurate measurements possible on events such as a short sprint and a vertical jump.
Parents and children were encouraged to take part in all 10 activities which also included a penalty shoot-out, an agility race and a test of their shooting accuracy.
Everyone who took part was given a card to record their results and those who completed all the activities were given a certificate.
At the same time as the family events there was also a five-a-side tournament for boys born in 2015 featuring teams from 8 Qatari clubs with Al Sadd emerging as winners.
In a closely fought final Al Sadd came from a goal down to eventually beat Al Ahli 4-3 in what was a high-quality final.
Several coaches from Aspire’s Football Department watched all the games including Rodrigo Fernandes the Lead Coach for Feeder Team.
"We use this as an opportunity to host an event and also to scout for players who we could invite to Aspire Academy in the future,” Rodrigo Fernandes explained.
“We have just started creating our elite group for those born in 2015 and so we wanted to make sure we see as many youngsters as possible so we can have a strong feeder group next season."
The other teams that took part in the tournament were Al Duhail SC, Al Gharafa SC, Al Arabi SC, Muaither SC, Umm Salal SC and Al Markhiya.
This year there was an added bonus for some of the youngsters who took part in the ‘Test Yourself’ events were handed “Golden Tickets” after completing the activities.
The tickets allow the recipients to attend one of Aspire’s three Track and Field Pre-Academy Programme centres, which is where the coaches identify boys who ultimately are offered places as student-athletes at Aspire.
This is the first time that Aspire Academy has scouted for potential student-athletes at a public event.
The coaches at the NSD activities recorded all the results for those who came to the event and those with impressive ones in specific tests, as well as showed good technique, were handed a ‘Golden Ticket’ at the end of the day.