31 Mar 2019
Doha, 31 March 2019. On Thursday afternoon, a high-ranking delegation from France including the Minister of Sports of France, Roxana Maracineanu, accompanied by Qatar’s Minister of Culture and Sports, H.E.Salah bin Ghanim Al Ali, was welcomed at Aspire Academy and taken on a guided tour.
Maracineanu, a former swimming world champion and Olympic Silver medalist in the 200m backstroke at the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydny, Australia, showed great interest when Aspire Academy Deputy Director General, Ali Salem Afifa and the Director of Football Performance and Science, Valter Di Salvo gave her an insight into the Academy’s philosophy of nurturing sporting talent.
“Aspire has created an environment where young athletes are able to develop into champions that can succeed on a sporting and personal level. Combined with expertise from all over the world, everything essential to build successful athletes comes together at this place and considering all these aspects and ideas, they are able to achieve new levels of performance”, said Maracineanu.
Speaking about the 2022 FIFA World Cup, she recognized the efforts of Qatar to host this major event. “Qatar has fought hard to be able to organize the upcoming World Cup and I could also see that they carry a lot of Olympic values in this country, so maybe Qatar could be a potential future host of Olympic Games. What is also very important in my opinion, is that the people living in Qatar integrate sports in their daily lives, because being physical active is an important factor for people’s health.”