24 Jun 2018
Doha, 24 June 2018. On Tuesday, Aspire Academy will celebrate the journey of 42 talented athletes who make up Qatar’s next generation of athletes. The 11th Aspire Academy graduation will see students from athletics, gymnastics, football, football refereeing, fencing, and table tennis capped in a Graduation Ceremony due to be held in Aspire Dome on Tuesday evening, 26 June.
The graduation ceremony will be attended by senior officials from Aspire Academy and its parent organisation, Aspire Zone Foundation, including Mr. Ivan Bravo, Director General of Aspire Academy and Mr. Ali Salem Afifa, Deputy Director General. They will be accompanied by various officials and decision makers in the sports field from local sports federations and clubs.
The graduation ceremony will bring an end to another successful year for Aspire Academy as it pursues its mission to identify and develop well-educated sports and academic champions. The ceremony also marks the culmination of six years of diligent effort from the student-athletes themselves during their time at Aspire Academy, and highlights the Academy’s continued efforts to launch their careers.
This year’s batch of graduates is full of talent and promise. Some of them have already proven themselves in various local and international sports competitions as they brought back gold, silver, and bronze medals to Qatar and were crowned championships at various tournaments.
Some of these include Aspire Academy’s current graduate, Moaaz Ibrahim, one of the most promising young athletes. He has recently returned from the Asian Junior Athletics Championships, which was held in Japan, with two medals, one gold and another silver, in shot put and discus throw. He is due to compete in the upcoming Junior World Athletics Championships to defend his 2016 discus throw title.
In football, the Under-19 Qatar national team, comprised entirely of Aspire Academy’s student-athletes and graduates, qualified to compete at the 2018 AFC Under-19 Championship, a biennial sporting event that’s due to be held next October 2018 in Indonesia. During the tournament, the top four teams will qualify for the 2019 FIFA Under-20 World Cup as the AFC representatives.
In fencing, student-athlete Yousef Al Bader finished second in the Turkish Fencing Federation European Cadet Circuit (Under-17), which featured 70 competitors from around the world. Meanwhile in squash, Hamad Al Amri, one of this year’s graduates, won second place at the Luxembourg Junior Open for the Under-19 age group.