Qatar has an abundance of talented young athletes who can be trained to become world-class sportspersons, Olympic medallist Liz McColgan has said.
“I have seen it, I have seen a lot of Qataris who go to school and they love to run, both girls and boys,” she said while speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Qatar-British Business Forum in Doha.
McColgan had won the 10,000m silver medal at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.
The former professional runner from Scotland now trains some 100 children under the Doha Athletics Club (DAC), which she established after her stint at the Qatar Athletics
Federation.
During her visit to several schools in Doha, McColghan said she realised that many young students want to take part in various physical and athletic activities.
She noted that Qatar also has many young women who are good in sports and have the potential to become world-class athletes, especially if they are given the proper training and access to state-of-the-art
facilities in the country.
Giving more choices and engaging children in fun activities help a lot in motivating them to play and be active in sports,
according to McColgan.
She believes children are the easiest people to motivate if it is done the right way and by giving them the opportunity to pursue the sport they like.
Besides running, McColgan said they also teach children about the right food to eat, and how to get fit and healthy.
“When we do coaching, we don’t just run kids, we talk about diet, nutrition, sleep, and we give them the whole package for them to know what an active lifestyle is all about, and that is what athletics does,” she added.
McColgan wants to establish athletics clubs in different parts of Qatar to give more children the opportunity to participate in their activities.
DAC engages parents in some of its physical activities once a month to help motivate their children
to be more active in sports.
“When kids love it so much, they just buy it, and some of the parents are now in running,” she said.
About Qatar’s performance in the field of sports, McColgan noted that the country is doing better and has the ability to produce more good players by developing and investing at the grassroots level.
“There are a lot of children who can do good things. Qatar has the facilities, the people, good coaches. Every child should have access to that,” she added.
Referring to the ongoing doping scandal, she said cheats did not deserve any accolade, suggesting that such athletes, their coaches, trainers, agents and federations should be held
accountable.
She stressed that the only way to have “clean sports” is by banning agents and imposing fines on the government bodies
concerned.
McColgan, who was also a 10,000m World Champion in 1991, said she, too, had been a victim of cheating in some
competitions.