Qatar sport COVER.indd - Qatar Olympic Committee

ISSUE 16 FEBRUARY 2012 $10 

IN FOCUS 

SPORTING DRAMA 

THROUGH A LENS 

FIT FOR LIFE 

TOP 10 TIPS FOR 

HEALTHY EATING 

DJOKOVIC 

THE SELF-BELIEF BUSINESS 

THE INNOVATORS 

SPORT’S TOP GAME CHANGERS 

PERFECT TIMING 

KEEPING COUNT OF EVERY SECOND 

GOLDEN GIRLS 

QATAR’S WOMEN HIT THE 

MEDAL TRAIL 

PARIS MATCH 

REVIVING LA LIGUE 

THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE 

OF THE QATAR 

OLYMPIC COMMITTEE

INSIDE 

5 In Focus 

Sporting life through a lens 

13 

8 Global Sports Update 

Insight from around the world 

13 Novak Djokovic 

Taking the tennis world by storm 

16 Preview 

Your essential sports event guide 

18 Fit for Life 

Top ten tips for a healthier life 

20 

20 Time Machines 

Sports timing in the fast lane 

24 12th Arab Games Doha 2011 

Introducing Qatar’s Golden Girls 

26 Leaders 

Opinion from Professor Simon Chadwick and Mohammed Hanzab, 

President of the International Centre for Sport Security 

30 For the Record 

Vettel joins exclusive F1 club 

24 

32 Indigenous Sports 

When local passions rule 

36 Trends 

French club football grows up 

No article in this publication or part thereof may be reproduced without proper permission and full acknowledgement of the 

source: Qatar Sport, a publication of the Qatar Olympic Committee. 

© Qatar Olympic Committee, 2011. 

www.olympic.qa 

qoc@olympic.qa 

Designed and produced for the Qatar Olympic Committee by SportBusiness Group, London. 

Cover photo: Action Images 

30

Welcome 

While the new sports year is well under way in Qatar, we would like to begin by reflecting on an event which 

took place in December but remains the topic of conversation throughout the region. 

We are delighted to report that the Arab Games were a tremendous success on every level and we like to think 

that, as hosts, Qatar has helped to establish the Games as an event of truly global significance. 

The Arab Games are a massive event with 6,000 athletes representing 21 nations in 29 different sports. 

As you can imagine, they represent a significant organisational, logistical and management challenge but the 

organisers in Doha responded magnificently, drawing on many years of experience of staging global events to 

ensure that this edition of the Arab Games raised the bar significantly. 

Over the years Qatar has benefited from the legacy of knowledge, expertise and practical experience gained 

from staging the 2006 Asian Games and many other major events. We drew on this to ensure the success of 

the Arab Games which naturally created their own legacy which will stand Qatar in good stead when it comes 

to hosting future events and continuing to fulfil our promise to be a regional and global hub for sports. 

We were naturally also delighted with the performance of Qatar’s own athletes at the Arab Games. Their 

performance in finishing in fourth place in the overall medals table was outstanding. In all Qatari competitors 

won 110 medals including 32 Golds, of particular note was the performance of our female athletes who won 

10 Gold medals. 

The success of the Qatar team at the Games may be seen as an indication of the progress which is being made 

in our efforts to create opportunities for sports participation in Qatar and to identify and support those who 

demonstrate talent and commitment, allowing them to realise their full potential. 

Also we would like to congratulate the International Olympic Committee and the Innsbruck 2012 Winter 

Youth Olympic Games Organizing Committee on the success and excellent organization of the first edition of 

this historical event that was held from 13-22 January 2012. 

Now our attention turns to the Olympic Games in London for which a number of track and field athletes 

and shooters have already achieved the qualifying standard. In the months ahead we will support our other 

competitors as they too strive to qualify so that we can take the strongest possible team to the UK. 

Our nation’s commitment to sport will be demonstrated on February 14 when Qatar will hold the first 

National Sports Day. It will be held every year on the second Tuesday of February, an annual public holiday 

which will celebrate the rich culture of sport in the country and encourage citizens and residents to visit 

sports facilities and take part in a range of exciting events. This year, those will include a marathon along the 

Doha Corniche which can be run or walked. 

We are proud that this initiative is fully supported by our government. 

Later this year Qatar will again become the centre of global sporting attention when the city hosts Doha 

GOALS Forum, a global gathering of sports leaders including world renowned athletes, heads of International 

Federations, key figures from the business of sport and , of course, the media. This forum will discuss many 

matters and values that can be achieved through sports. 

Saoud Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani 

Secretary General, Qatar Olympic Committee 

4 | Issue 16 | Qatar Sport

1 

THE SPORTING WORLD 

THROUGH THE LENSES OF 

REUTERS AND ACTION 

IMAGES PHOTOGRAPHERS 

1 THE REAL THING 

Fatima Abdulla of Qatar bites her gold medal after the trampoline 

women’s individual fi nal at the Arab Games in Doha, December 20, 2011. 

Photograph by: REUTERS 

2 TIGER POWER 

Tiger Woods returned to winning way at the Chevron World Challenge 

PGA golf tournament in Thousand Oaks, California, December 1-4, 2011. 

Photograph by: REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson 

2 

Qatar Sport | Issue 16 | 5

3 GUESS WHO? 

The silhouette shows Spain’s Rafael 

Nadal in action in the first round of 

the Australian Open in Melbourne 

Park, January 16, 2012. 

Photograph by: Action Images/ 

Jason O’Brien 

3 

4 SHOW ME YOUR MEDALS 

Tunisian swimmer Oussama Mellouli 

poses with 15 gold medals after 

winning best athlete at the Arab 

Games,, Doha, December 22, 2011. 

Photograph by: REUTERS/Fadi 

Al-Assaad 

5 LIFT OFF 

Finland’s Janne Happonen takes 

off from the ski jump at the 60th 

four-hills ski jumping tournament in 

Innsbruck, Austria, January 3, 2012. 

Photograph by: REUTERS/ 

Kai Pfaffenbach 

5 

4 



UPDATE 

THE INNOVATORS 

SPORTING LEADERS FROM QATAR CLINCH TOP INDUSTRY AWARDS 

Sports sector leaders from Qatar have 

taken two of the top three spots in the 

Sports Innovator 2011 Awards published 

by the influential sports industry magazine 

SportBusiness International. 

The Awards celebrated 20 men and 

women whose forward-looking business 

decisions most changed the sporting 

landscape over the year – and ranked 

Number One for 2011 was Nasser Al- 

Khelaifi, General Manager, Al Jazeera Sport 

and Chairman, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG). 

Al-Khelaifi spent 2011 moving the 

Doha-based media company into the most 

important TV markets in the global sports 

industry, the magazine said. 

The year began with Al-Khelaifi 

shaking hands with FIFA over Al Jazeera’s 

acquisition of the exclusive rights for 

the 2018 and 2022 World Cups in the 

Middle East. In May, Al Jazeera bought 

the international rights to France’s Ligue 

1 from 2012-13 to 2017-18, elevating the 

broadcaster to the number two financial 

backer of French football behind French 

pay-TV partner Canal Plus. 

Just one month later Al Jazeera made a 

game-changing decision to buy the rights 

to show two live Ligue 1 games a week in 

France from 2012-13 to 2015-16. 

Al Jazeera is expected to launch a 

new channel in that country to exploit 

the rights, with further channel launches 

expected in the US and Australia – 

signaling the emergence of a major new 

player for global sports rights. 

If that wasn’t enough, Al-Khelaifi headed 

the acquisition of Paris St Germain by 

Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), the Gulf 

state’s international investment vehicle, 

bringing in ex-Brazilian international 

Leonardo as sporting director, and himself 

becoming chairman of PSG’s board. “Our 

ambitions for the club are clear,” he said. 

“ We want to win league titles and get into 

the Champions League.” 

According to the judging panel of six 

international sports industry experts, 

another Qatari, Hassan Al-Thawadi, 

Secretary General, Qatar 2022 Supreme 

Committee, also merited a top three 

place for sports innovation. 

At just 32, Al-Thawadi is the youngest 

Clockwise: Nasser Al-Khelaifi, Hassan Al-Thawadi, Roger Goodell and Dietrich Mateschitz. 

innovator to appear in the prestigious top 

20 and was commended for his part in 

finding creative solutions to a number of 

issues arising from Qatar’s successful Bid 

to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup 2022, 

providing answers to questions on football 

development, summer heat and the lack of 

existing stadia in Qatar. 

“The in-stadia, air-cooling systems that 

were promised at the end of 2010 have 

now been trialled in the desert heat and 

will be pivotal to silence the doubters 

who claim a World Cup – or indeed an 

Olympic Games – cannot take place in the 

middle of an Arab summer,” SportBusiness 

International said. 

The plans developed by Al-Thawadi 

and his bid team, the magazine continued, 

could shape the way sporting events are 

held for decades to come – and it’s not just 

technology where Al-Thawadi raised the 

bar: “The rationale is that Qatar will use 

the FIFA World Cup to create not only a 

sporting legacy for its population, but also 

in countries around the world that do not 

have the same access to multi-billion petrodollar 

reserves. The stadia purpose-built for 

2022 can be taken down after the event 

and moved to less-developed countries.” 

Qatar’s top sports industry movers 

and shakers shared the podium places 

with Dana White, President, Ultimate 

Fighting Championship (UFC) who has 

transformed the UFC product from a 

niche to a major market force. 

“With a combination of pan-regional, 

multi-million dollar broadcast deals and a 

social media strategy that puts its peers 

to shame, White’s forward-thinking has 

promoted UFC to the top of the bill,” 

SportBusiness International said of the 

outspoken American who took second 


spot in the 2011 Awards. 

Among the other sports industry 

luminaries listed in the top 20 were the 

British event maketer, Richard Worth 

(ranked 4), Chairman of the America’s 

Cup Event Authority, who helped 

rebrand and repackage the 160-yearold 

competition for television to keep 

sailing in the spotlight all year round; and 

Roger Goodell, Commissioner, National 

Football League (ranked 5) who emerged 

from a difficult summer with a 10-year 

collective bargaining agreement and a new 

broadcast deal with ESPN worth $1.9 

billion per year. The NFL also continued 

its expansion into Europe with a second 

regular-season game mooted for London. 

Last year’s winner, Dietrich Mateschitz, 

the Owner and Founder of Red Bull, was 

ranked 16th this year, having continued 

to support one of the most innovative 

sporting portfolios in the business, ranging 

from football to cliff-diving. 

Mateschitz’s all-conquering Red Bull 

Racing Formula One team, of course, had 

the highest profile in 2011. 

The SportBusiness International. Sports Innovator 2011 Awards 

1 Nasser Al-Khelaifi, General Manager, Al Jazeera Sport (Qatari) 

2 Dana White, President, Ultimate Fighting Championship (American) 

3 Hassan Al-Thawadi, Secretary General, Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee (Qatari) 

4 Richard Worth, Chairman, America’s Cup Event Authority (British) 

5 Roger Goodell, Commissioner, National Football League (American) 

6 Richard Arnold, Commercial Director, Manchester United (British) 

7 Patrick Nally, Managing Director, Mind Sports Partners (British) 

8 Marcelo Campos Pinto, Executive Director, TV Globo (Brazilian) 

9 Michel Platini, President, UEFA (French) 

10 Michel Masquelier, President, IMG Media (French) 

11 Kevin Plank, CEO, Under Armour ((American) 

12 Bernie Ecclestone, President and CEO, Formula One Management (British) 

13 Jeff Nathanson, EMEA Head of Sport, YouTube (American) 

14 Sharad Pawar, President, International Cricket Council (Indian) 

15 Sandro Rosell, President, FC Barcelona (Spanish) 

16 Dietrich Mateschitz, Owner and Founder, Red Bull (Austrian) 

17 Mike Lee OBE, Founder, Vero Communications and PyeongChang 2018 bid adviser (British) 

18 David Hill, Chairman and CEO, Fox Sports (American) 

19 Dmitry Chernyshenko, CEO, Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics (Russian) 

20 Stacey Allaster, Tour Chairman and CEO, Women’s Tennis Association (Canadian) 

A GREENER WINTER GAMES 

PYEONGCHANG’S DEEP SEA SOLUTION FOR ICE RINK COOLING TECHNOLOGY 

Qatar set the ball rolling with its 

extraordinary carbon-neutral, stadiumcooling 

technology for the 2022 FIFA 

Word Cup. 

But now a new project spearheaded by 

South Korean Government and organisers 

of the PyeongChang 2018 Winter 

Olympics could set a new benchmark in 

technological innovation for winter sports. 

Pending the results of a feasibility study, 

the ice rink that will be used during the 

2018 Games and situated in Gangneung, 

the central hub of the Games, will have 

its temperature controlled by a natural 

source – deep sea water. 

The water that will be used to maintain 

a consistently low temperature will be 

sourced from 200 metres below the 

surface of the sea, where it is beyond the 

reach of sunlight and has a temperature of 

less than two degrees Celsius. 

The temperature-controlling technology 

is already in use at a number of hotels in 

Hawaii and Guam as well as residential 

complexes in Okinawa in Japan. 

If, as expected, the project is given the 

green light, the ice rink will be the first 

winter sports facility in the world to be 

powered by ‘green’ energy. 

According to Hyun Taek Lim, Director 

of the Government Ministry behind 

the plan, the type of project under 

consideration for the ice rink could be 

replicated at other sports events across 

the world, Energy-saving goals should be 

a priority for hosts of future Olympic 

Games, he siad. 

“It is a particularly important duty for 

the host city of mega-sport events such 

as the Olympic and Paralympic Games 

to promote these initiatives and make 

people experience state-of-the-art ecotechnologies,” 

Lim said. 

“Green energy initiatives are important 

for the host city as well because they can 

allow the Games to create long-lasting 

environmental legacies for the region.” 

For organisers of the 2018 Games, and 

the government of South Korea, amplifying 

awareness of the environment is part 

of the ‘brand’ of the first South Korean 

Winter Olympics. 


UPDATE 

INBRIEF 

Buenos Aires bids for youth 

The Argentine Olympic Committee 

(COA) has launched a bid for Buenos 

Aires to host the 2018 Summer Youth 

Olympics. “We believe that Buenos 

Aires would be an excellent host city 

for this exciting new addition to the 

Olympic sports calendar,” said COA 

President Gerardo Werthein. 

While Singapore staged the inaugural 

Summer Youth Games in 2010, the 

Austrian city of Innsbruck opened the 

first Winter Games (January 13-22) with 

IOC president Jacques Rogge stating his 

wish for the event to bring new sports 

and formats to the traditional Olympics. 

“We need to rejuvenate,” said Rogge 

at Innsbruck’s opening ceremony. “We 

need to adapt to the wishes of the 

youths and not stay too conservative.” 

Al Sadd makes it four 

Qatar Stars League club Al Sadd scored 

West Asia’s fourth AFC Champions 

League triumph after a dramatic penalty 

shoot-out in the final against Korea’s 

Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors in November. 

Al Sadd joins the UAE’s Al-Ain FC (2003) 

and Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ittihad (2004 

and 2005) as AFC Champions League 

winners from the West Asian region. 

Since the tournament was revamped 

in season 2002-03, clubs from East 

Asian soccer superpowers Japan and 

Korea have won five out of the nine 

editions. Having qualified as the Asian 

representative for the 2011 FIFA Club 

World Cup in Japan in December, Al 

Sadd went on to clinch third place after a 

play-off against Japan’s Kashiwa Reysol. 

Olympians choose Prince 

Albert II of Monaco 

H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco has 

become the new patron of the World 

Olympians Association (WOA), which 

represents the interests of all 100,000 

athletes to have competed in an 

Olympic event. 

Prince Albert is the only head of state 

to have participated in five Olympic 

Games - in the bobsleigh, from Calgary 

1988 through to Salt Lake City 2002. 

NEXT GENERATION POINTS 

THE WAY TO QATAR 2022 

CLUB ACADEMY CUP LAUNCHES YOUNG STARS 

Many of the players who aim to grace 

the FIFA World Cup in Qatar in 2022 will 

be focusing on a different target in the 

months ahead as they battle to become the 

first Champions of football’s newest and 

most prestigious youth competition. 

The NextGen Series, an Under-19 

competition dubbed the Youth Champions, 

attracted 16 of Europe’s leading club sides 

including FC Barcelona, Liverpool, Inter 

Milan, Tottenham Hotspur, Ajax Amsterdam, 

Marseilles, Manchester City and Celtic. 

Now the revolutionary competition is at 

the quarter-final stage and FC Barcelona go 

into the round as favourites after wining five 

of their six group phase games. 

The semi-finals, final and third/fourth 

place play-off games will be played in the 

UK at the end of March and both clubs and 

organisers are delighted with the first year’s 

competition 

The NextGen Series was launched by 

experienced global football executive Justin 

Andrews and Mark Warburton, who has 

run successful academies at a number of 

professional clubs. 

Both are driven by a desire to improve 

the quality of talent in football and promise 

that NexGen will give players a real taste of 

big time pro football. 

“Mark and I have worked with clubs in 

Europe and South America and were aware 

of the need to bridge the gap between 

academies and the first team. 

“We wanted to find a way of providing 

elite and squad player at this age with 

like-for-like competition rather than having 

them sit on the first team bench or playing 

technically inferior levels of football in 

reserve teams,” Justin Andrews said. 

“Being able to compete home and away 

makes every game a big game and the 

players will experience the attention to 

travel, rest and diet that are associated with 

the highest levels of professional football.” 

“Clubs make a huge investment in their 

academies and there is tremendous interest 

among fans in the players who are coming 

through and may make it into the first team. 

The key is that this is the best versus the 

best, a showcase for the brightest talent 

in Europe,” said Andrews who hopes to 

expand the competition and possibly include 

South American teams in the final stages. 

Organisers say a number of other major 

clubs are set to sign up for the 2012-13 

season and are currently considering where 

the final and semi-finals will be hosted. 


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SUPERSTAR PROFILE 

GAME 

CHANGER 

Novak Djokovic’s super-successful 2011 changed the face 

of men’s tennis by smashing the Federer/Nadal duopoly. 

THE OPEN Era of men’s tennis has been punctuated by some of the 

greatest sporting rivalries of all time. 

Down the years we have seen monumental contests between Borg, 

McEnroe, Becker, Edberg, Lendl, Sampras and Agassi and, in recent 

year, Roger Federer and Rafa Nadal, two players considered by many 

observers to be among the best of all time. 

These were match-ups which came as close as sport comes to 

offering an absolute guarantee of drama and the world watched 

enthralled – gripped by every point of every game of every set. 

These players were sportsmen whose personalities towered above the 

game. You didn’t have to be a tennis fan to know exactly who McEnroe 

and Borg were and what their fire and ice confrontations meant. 

They were the heavyweight pugilists of their day, men whose 

exploits gave tennis its narrative and kept the professional game in 

the public eye. 

Although there have been exceptions the general rule has been 

that, when it comes to great tennis talent, two come along 

together and for years it looked as if Nadal and Federer were 

happily continuing that tradition. 


SUPERSTAR PROFILE 

That is until last season when their 

hegemony was spectacularly shattered by 

a young Serbian who looks set to write his 

own chapter in the history of the sport and 

of his country. 

Novak Djokovic has always been a talent. 

But it is arguable that anybody realised 

exactly how good he was until he started 

to rip up the form book to make the 2011 

season his own. 

In mid-January 2011 he despatched a 

journeyman Spaniard in the first round of 

the Australian Open to launch one of the 

greatest years enjoyed by any athlete in 

any sport. 

At the time the victory was seen as 

routine but it later achieved massive 

significance as the launch-pad for a 43 

match unbeaten run which stretched some 

six months. 

During the year Djokovic ran-up a 

win-loss record of 70-6 and won the 

slams in Australia, the United States and 

at Wimbledon which was, he said, the 

realisation of a dream. 

“It was the most special day of my life. 

It is my favourite tournament and one I 

have always dreamed of winning. It was the 

first tournament I ever watched in my life 

and I think I am still sleeping,” he said after 

victory over Nadal. 

And with the world Number one starting 

the New Year in style with a win in Abu 

Dhabi, there’s no reason to suspect that last 

year’s heroics were a flash in the pan. 

His main rivals have certainly 

acknowledged his right to pole position 

in the men’s game and officials at the ATP 

Tour are quick to recognise the part played 

by his emergence in creating an exciting 

new dimension to the sport. 

Nadal, who also lost to the Serb in the 

US Open final, says he has to shape up if he 

is to regain top spot. 

“I know I have to practice to improve 

my tennis. For the rest of my career, I don’t 

know if that’s gonna be enough to beat 

him (Djokovic) or to lose to him 100 more 

times,” Nadal told reporters in January. 

Federer, who lost to Djokovic in 

Australia and the US last year but at least 

brought his unbeaten run to an end in 

the Paris semis described his opponent as 

“definitely the most consistent player of this 

last year” adding somewhat ominously that 

“he looks like he’s in good shape again for 

this upcoming season.” 

Even before his year of years Djokovic 

was a highly ranked and rated player who 

“In these moments against a great champion 

you simply have to believe. It is about 

stepping in and taking your chances... 

and I always believed.” 

Novak Djokovic 

had won the 2008 year-end ATP Finals 

in Shanghai, beating Nikolay Davydenko 

in straight sets in the final. But going into 

2011, pundits were not really looking much 

further than Federer and Nadal to provide 

the big wins of the year. 

However there had been a clue back in 

December 2010 that things were about to 

change. In front of a tumultuous crowd in 

Belgrade, Djokovic led the Serbian team to 

a comeback victory over France to clinch 

the Davis Cup for the first time. It was a 

simply unforgettable day for sport in Serbia 

– made even more dramatic by the team’s 

collective head shave after clinching their 

historic victory. 

Djokovic is a proud Serb who, according 

to reports, celebrated his Australian Open 

victory by staying up late into the night 

singing folk songs from his homeland. He 

also hints that the adversity faced by his 

country and countrymen have helped forge 

the steely determination which has helped 

him scale the summit of men’s tennis. 

After his victory in Melbourne he 

reflected on what the achievement meant to 

his country. 

“We’ve been growing up through two 

wars and when you turn around and 

analyse what you have been through you 

appreciate things in your life and know 

what your values are,” he said. 

“Of course everybody loves their country 

and I don’t love mine more than you love 

yours but in my case it is a more special 

feeling because we have been through 

something different. I know how much 

people have suffered – and still suffer 

because of some problems – so it is an 

obligation to support them as best we can.” 

And there can be no doubt that Serbia’s 

sense of nationhood and identity was given 

a major short in the arm by its favourite 

son‘s success on the court. 

The determination which is one of the 

hallmarks of his game was nowhere more 

evident than at the Sony Ericsson Open in 

Miami where he came from a set down to 

beat Rafa Nadal having lost to the Spaniard 

in five of the previous six finals the pair 

had contested. 

“You have to believe on the court 

because in the end it is mental. In these 

moments against a great champion you 

simply have to believe. It is about stepping 

in and taking your chances and I always 

believed,” he said. 

It is a level of determination which has 

been evident since Day One according to 

Jelena Gencic, the Serbian Federation Cup 

coach who took the young Djokovic under 

her wing. 

“Everything I know about tennis 

I know from her. She was the base of 


my knowledge,” Djokovic said of their 

relationship. 

Gencic herself has clear memories of her 

first meeting with the ambitious youngster, 

“I shall never forget the day when a fouryear-old 

boy came to my tennis cam with a 

bag packed as if for professional training,” 

she told one interviewer. 

“I asked him who packed it for him and 

he replied he did it himself. When I asked 

him what he wanted to be when he grew up 

he said, without hesitation, ‘number one in 

the world’. 

Gencic, rated the youngster the greatest 

talent she had spotted since Monica Selles 

and oversaw his early development. 

But, aged 12, the need to progress 

further and faster meant leaving home in 

Serbia to spend time at the Nikola Pilic 

tennis academy in Germany, a move 

which may have been difficult at the 

time but which helped foster a sense of 

independence, which has proved invaluable 

for a young professional tennis player with 

the world at his feet. 

At 14, Djokovic became European 

champion in his age group in both singles 

and doubles and two years later, in 2003, 

was selected for Davis Cup matches against 

Ivory Coast and Bulgaria and entered his 

first ATP Tournament, the TK Red Star 

Futures event. Perhaps unsurprisingly given 

what has followed, the young Djokovic 

swept all before him. 

“My dream was to get through the 

first round and win my first professional 

point, so what happened was beyond any 

expectations,” he recalled. 

“I won the title in my home country, 

in my home town and showed that I can 

compete with professional tennis players 

and beat then.” 

Djokovic, like some of the other great 

sportsmen and women of his generation, 

is also determined to use his profile and 

influence to help others. 

Even as he was facing his greatest 

pressures on court, he was willing to 

take time out in his role as a UNICEF 

ambassador for Serbia where he is involved 

in programmes to provide educational 

opportunities for youngsters who are 

among the most disadvantaged members 

of society. 

“I accepted UNICEF’s invitation with 

great pleasure and the focus of my work 

will be on improving the conditions in 

which children in Serbia live, learn and 

grow-up.” 

In addition he is one of 55 Champions 

For Peace, appointed by the Monaco-based 

Peace and Sport organisation which sets 

out to use the power of sport to create 

inclusivity, understanding and harmony 

among and between disadvantaged and 

warring communities around the world. 

“I am very proud that I was invited to 

become a Champion for Peace,” Djokovic 

said. “I want to give back to the world 

the joy and fulfilment that I have received 

through tennis. I firmly believe that sport 

serves the cause of peace by improving the 

lives of young people and building bridges 

between communities. 

“I want to contribute and become 

an actor for peace. The Peace and Sport 

organisation is the perfect platform to 

achieve this.” 

Over the past year Novak Djokovic has 

achieved so much more than $12.5 million 

in prize money and 10 titles. His exploits 

on the court have helped reinforce the 

position of men’s tennis as a major sports 

property. According to Adam Helfant, who 

recently left his role as CEO of the ATP 

Tour, men’s tennis has never been so strong 

and its strength is the result of the quality of 

the players throughout the Top 20. 

“I don’t think we have ever had such 

strength in depth and the emergence of 

Novak Djokovic to challenge Federer and 

Nadal is evidence of that,” he explained. 

With more titles up for grab in 2012, 

there is no longer any such thing as a 

two horse race on the ATP Tour because 

Djokovic has changed the game. 


COMING UP 

FEBRUARY-APRIL 2012 

FEBRUARY 

Qatar Women Open Tennis championship 

Khalifa Tennis Complex, Doha 13-19/2/2012 

FINA Diving World Cup 

London, UK 20-26/2/2012 

Archery World Indoor Championships 

Las Vegas, USA 20-26/2/2012 

Golf WGC Match Play 

Arizona, USA 22-26/2/2012 

Biathlon World Championships 

Ruhpolding, Germany 29/2-11/3/2012 

Qatar International Squash Championships 

Khalifa Tennis Complex 1-8/3/2012 

IAAF World Indoor Championships 

Istanbul, Turkey 9-11/3/2012 

Milan-San Remo cycling race 

Italy 17/3/2012 

13-19 Qatar Women Open Tennis 

The Khalifa Tennis Complex is the stage for one of the most 

prestigious early-season WTA events 

MARCH 

Global Champions Tour Show Jumping 

Federation Venue 17-19/3/2012 

Formula One Australian Grand Prix 

Melbourne, Australia 18/3/2012 

World Figure Skating Championships 

Nice, France 25/3-1/4/2012 

GCC Cycling Championship 

Around Qatar 25-31/3/2012 

Track World Championships 

Melbourne, Australia 28/3-1/4/2012 

School Olympic Program Finals 

Aspire 5-6/4/2012 

The Masters 

Augusta, USA 5-8/4/2012 

The 158th Boat Race 

London, UK 7/4/2012 

Chinese Grand Prix 

Shanghai, China 15/4/2012 

1-8 Qatar 15th International Squash Championships 

Gregory Gaultier of France and Nicol David of Malaysia will 

defend their titles in Doha. 

APRIL 

Qatar MotoGP 

Lusail International Circuit, Doha 15/4/2012 

Monte Carlo Master Tennis 

Monaco 16-22/4/2012 

London Marathon 

London, UK 22/4/2012 

Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix 

Sakhir, Bahrain 2/4/2012 

1 Track World Championships 

Leading medal contenders for London 2012 will be out in 

force on the final day of the UCI’s indoor showcase 


COMING UP 

20-26 FINA Diving World Cup 

Olympic hopefuls will compete in the World Cup at the new 

London 2012 aquatics centre. 

22-26 WGC Match Play 

England’s Luke Donald and world number one will defend his 

WGC Match Play title in Arizona. 

9-11 IAAF World Indoor Championships 

The world’s top athletes will grace Istanbul as Turkey hosts its 

first major athletics event. 

25-1/4 World Figure Skating Championships 

Gold medals will be up for grabs for figure skating’s elite at the 

Palais des Congrès Acropolis, in Nice, France. 

15 Qatar MotoGP 

2011 MotoGP champion Casey Stoner will be looking for 

another flying start at this year’s Qatar MotoGP. 

22 London Marathon 

Kenya’s Emmanuel Mutai and Mary Keitany won last year’s 

elite men’s and women’s London Marathon respectively. 


FIT FOR LIFE 

Ten tips for Healthy Eating by ASPIRE ACTIVE 

lifestyle instructor and dietician Hala Daher. 

A healthy diet should be a way of eating that you can stick with for long period of time, but too 

many of us have developed a taste for quick fixes. At times of low energy in the day we reach for 

another cup of coffee, chocolate bar or sugar-rich snack that provides a short-term boost lasting 

around 20 minutes. Inevitably, another energy slump is soon around the corner and so the cycle of 

unhealthy eating begins again. 

Even at the elite level of sport, some athletes opt for high protein diets when evidence shows that even 

highly active people need to take the same proportion of carbohydrates to proteins as an average 

person with a healthy diet. With obesity levels reaching epidemic levels in some regions, the answer 

is to be more aware of what and why we eat. Here are Ten Tips to help you through the maze. 

1 

A healthy diet should fit into one’s lifestyle: this means that you should not 

eliminate any food group such as carbohydrates, fat, nor restrict yourself to only 

one type of food like grapefruit or cabbage soup. 

2 

Avoid 

extremes: extreme diets and complicated weight loss programmes may 

offer some short-term benefits but typically leave you frustrated, stressed and 

hungry all the time. 

3 

Do not skip meals: putting yourself in starvation mode or skipping meals will make 

you unable to resist temptations later on, therefore you will reach for high-caloric food 

choices. 

4 

Make 

small, minor changes: start by making small, minor changes to your regular eating 

habits. Reduce your intake of junk food, cut down on portions, add healthier choices to 

your menu like fruits and vegetables. 


ASPIRE ACTIVE, the 

community programme 

of ASPIRE Academy, 

offers fi tness and healthoriented 

activities for the 

people of Qatar. Certifi ed 

fi tness and health instructors offer a 

variety of health and fitness activities 

to individuals starting from babies of 

six months, toddlers, kindergarten 

kids, teenage boys and girls and adults. 

For detailed information on the 

programmes and offers, please contact 

ASPIRE ACTIVE main reception, 

+974 4413 6219, or visit our www. 

aspire.qa website, by clicking “In the 

Community”. 

5 

Drink 

6 

Keep 

7 

Learn 

more water: water acts as an appetite suppressant, helps digestion and 

promotes clear skin. 

track of what you eat: try to keep a food journal, it serves as a 

powerful reality check for what you’re truly eating not what you’d like to 

think you’re eating. 

to read food labels: eat stuff that has no label like fresh fruits, vegetables 

and grains. Check the sodium content of packaged foods and the fat content. Avoid 

products high in saturated fat and/ or trans fats. 

8 

Cope with stress: try to reduce your stress levels. Studies show that chronic stress 

boosts levels of feel-hungry hormones which leads many people to reach for caloric 

comfort foods to ease their anxiety levels. Such foods are addictive, the more you eat, 

the more you crave. If low in energy, reach for healthier alternatives like fruits, nuts, popcorn 

but in moderation. 

9 

Get 

enough sleep: studies show that lack of sleep can interfere with your metabolism, 

cranking up your appetite and drain your energy making you 

too tired to exercise. 

10 

Get Active! Stick with a consistent exercise routine, choose something you 

enjoy and like. You can start by walking for 15 minutes three times a day 

(before breakfast, around lunch time, and after supper). You need to get your 

heart pumping and enjoy moving for at least 30 minutes each day. 


EVERY 

MILLISECOND 

COUNTS 

Sports timing design and technology has 

progressed in tandem with the growth of 

the world’s top sporting events. 

TIME HAS inspired some of the great 

athletic performances in history. 

From the first four-minute mile set by 

Britain’s Roger Bannister in 1954 to the 

first sub-10 seconds 100 metres recorded 

by America’s Jim Hines in 1969, time’s 

numerical calibrations have fired the 

sporting imagination and pushed athletes 

to new limits. 

But whether registered in days, hours, 

minutes, seconds or milliseconds, time is 

not just a measure of world records but 

of ranking. 

Accurate timing is the ultimate referee, 

sorting out the winners from the losers - 

even if divided by the merest fractions of 

a second. 

At the 2004 Athens Olympics, for 

example, Britain’s Kelly Holmes took the 

women’s 800m gold from Morocco’s 

Hasna Benhassi by a hair’s breadth - just 

0.05 seconds. 

Four years later at the Beijing Olympic 

Games, where America’s Michael Phelps 

won a record eight gold medals, his 

seventh gold was achieved in the 100m 

butterfly with victory by the slimmest of 

recorded margins at an Olympic Games - 

0.01 seconds. 

Without accurate timepieces – and 

the technology to capture the exact start 

and finishing points - the validity of these 

results would be open to doubt and these 

great sporting spectacles just that little bit 

less compelling. 

KEEPING UP 

The Olympic movement recognised 

this nearly 100 years ago when it called 

on timepiece manufacturers to develop 

a stopwatch that could be relied upon to 

record the progress of its athletes with 

precision and consistency. 

The IOC had good reason to call in 

the experts. 

At the first modern Olympic Games 

in Athens, Greece in 1896, the judges 

provided their own stopwatches to 

determine winners’ times. 

Not surprisingly, this turned out 

varying degrees of accuracy and legitimacy 

in results – and since they were operated 

by human beings, there was even more 

margin for error. 

One manufacturer keen to take on the 

IOC’s challenge was the Swiss, familyowned 

company Heuer, known from 1985 

as TAG Heuer, a watch brand synonymous 

with excellence in sports timing. 

In 1916, the Heuer company and 

its technicians made the world’s first 

mechanical stop watch to record time to 

one-hundredth of a second. 

The “Mikrograph Pocket Chronometer” 

became an instant classic and was selected 

as the official timing instrument for three 

consecutive Olympic Games in Antwerp 

1920, Paris 1924 and Amsterdam 1928. 

This Mikrograph revolutionised the 

art of timekeeping, particularly during 

the Olympic Games sprint competitions, 

but it was another Swiss-owned brand, 

Omega, which become the first company 

in Olympic history to supply identical 

stopwatches with observatory precisionrating 

certificates for timekeeping at 

all events. 

MAKING HISTORY 

At the 1932 Olymic Games in Los Angeles, 

Omega unveiled its Olympic “Calibre 

1130” stopwatch with a fly-back hand, as 

well as an innovative feature which made 

it possible to record both the total elapsed 


SPORTS TIMING 

A digital image of the photo finish in which 

Usain Bolt broke the 100m world record at 

the Berlin World Championships 2009, 

“One millisecond is the time that it took for Jamaican 

sprint superstar Usain Bolt to run 1.2 centimetres 

when establishing his new 100m world record of 9.58 

seconds at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin.” 

time and intermediate (lap) times posted 

by each competitor. 

Omega sent 30 such stopwatches – and 

one watchmaker – to the 1932 Games in 

Los Angeles and it increased the accuracy 

and reliability of results dramatically. 

All events were recorded accurately 

to the nearest 1/10th of a second – an 

important factor when timing the 

American sprinter Eddie Tolan’s Olympic 

100m record of 10.3 seconds – a mark that 

was matched four years later by the great 

Jessie Owens at the Berlin Olympic Games, 

where Omega sent 185 stopwatches. 

Today, Omega’s association with the 

Games is part of Olympic history. 

At London 2012, Omega will celebrate 

its 25th Summer and Winter Games 

as official timekeeper and to mark the 

occasion Omega has put together an 

exhibition of famous timepieces at the 

brand’s largest European store, which 

opened last year on a site close to the 

Olympic Stadium in London. 

INNOVATION 

The “Bannister” watch is there, as is 

the gold Omega watch worn by Amelia 

Earhart in her round-the-world flight 

of 1936. There is also a copy of a classic 

1969 Speedmaster, the sports and racing 

chronograph, which became the first 

watch worn on the moon during Apollo 11 

when Buzz Aldrin stepped onto the lunar 

surface in July of 1969. 

But the exhibition also showcases the 

complete paraphernalia of sports timing, 

including the final lap bells, cameras, 

automatic trigger boxes and swimming 

touch pads, without which accurate timing 

at the Olympic Games would be impossible. 

Omega’s innovations have acted as 

milestones in the history of Olympic 

timing. At the Helsinki 1952 Olympic 

Games, Omega became the first company 

to use electronic timing in sport which 

proved accurate to within 0.05 seconds in 

24 hours. Four year later at the Melbourne 

Games, Olympic events were recorded to 

1/100th of a second for the first time. 

It was Omega too that introduced 

“contact pads” for swimming competitions 

– a new technology, which reacted only 

to the touch of the swimmers and was not 

affected by water splashes. 

But the famous Swiss sports timing 

brands haven’t had it all their own way. 

Omega’s Olympic spell was broken at the 

1964 Tokyo Olympic Games – the first to 

be held in Asia – where the official timer 

of the Games, Seiko, unveiled the first fully 

electronic automated timing system. 

QUARTZ TIMING 

The system linked a starting pistol with a 

quartz timer and a photo-finish apparatus 

to record finish times. In fact, Seiko credits 

the company’s technology development for 

the Games during the early 1960s as the 

impetus for its other timing innovations. 


SPORTS TIMING 

The inside workings of the TAG 

Heuer Mikrotimer Flying 1000, 

the first mechanical watch 

to measure and display the 

1/1,000th of a second. 


In 1969, for example, Seiko created and 

marketed the Seiko Astron, the world’s first 

commercial quartz wristwatch, based on 

technology developed for the 1964 Games. 

Similarly, many classic sport watches have 

emerged from Omega’s Olympic association, 

including the Speedmaster marque 

mentioned above, while TAG Heuer’s transfer 

of focus to motor-racing and Formula One, in 

particular, spawned a series of classic sports 

watches such as the Carrera (named after 

the legendary 1950s race across Mexico, the 

Carrera Panamericana), Monaco, Monza and 

Silverstone. 

Other luxury watch brands have continued 

their association with top-level sport, including 

Rolex, an official timer at the US Open and 

Open golf championships; Hublot, the official 

licensed timepiece of the FIFA World Cup; 

IWC Schaffhausen, the official Timekeeper 

of the Volvo Ocean Race; and Longines, a 

vintage barnd which recently entered into 

a partnership with the Qatar Racing and 

Equestrian Club which will see it sponsor some 

of the world’s leading horse races such as the 

Prix de l’Opera Longines, the Group 1 race run 

just before the Qatar Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe 

in Longchamp, Paris where Longines will also 

act as the official timekeeper. 

SUPER FAST 

In fact, these days the ability to measure time 

accurately in the smallest amounts is not at 

issue. The technology to measure sporting 

units of time in the milliseconds (one 

thousandth of a second) and beyond is readily 

available. 

Remarkably, in 2011, TAG Heuer unveiled 

the first-ever mechanical chronograph 

to measure and display the 1/1000th of a 

second in the form of its Mikrotimer Flying 

1000. Retailing at $89,000, the Mikrotimer 

won the coveted “Best Sport Chronograph” 

award at the prestigious 2011 Grand Prix de 

L’Horlogerie de Geneve. 

But, for now, the International Olympic 

Committee has decided there is no need to 

record results to a third number after the 

decimal point - even if Omega and others 

would be happy to do so. 

Not necessary? Well, one millisecond 

is the time that it took for Jamaican sprint 

superstar Usain Bolt to run 1.2 centimeters 

when establishing his new 100m world 

record of 9.58 seconds at the 2009 World 

Championships in Berlin. 

With human beings forever going faster (as 

well as higher and stronger), world sport may 

one day decide that every millisecond counts. 

1916 

1930 

1957 

1976 

2003 

2011 

TAG Heuer Mikrograph 

The Mikorgraph was created 

in 1916 in response to growing 

demand for more accurate 

sports timing. Incredibly, the 

model remained in production 

until 1969. 

OMEGA MG 1134 

The Omega Olympic spilt second 

chronograph MG 1134 became 

the first official chronograph 

of the Olympic Games at Los 

Angeles 1932. 

OMEGA Speedmaster 

The Speedmaster was a spinoff 

from Omega’s Olympic 

sponsorship and became the first 

watch to be worn on the moon 

in 1969. 

OMEGA Seamaster 

Chrono -Quartz 

The Omega Chrono- 

Quartz Seamaster, the first 

digital and analog watch, 

was made for the 1976 

Montreal Olympic Games. 

TAG Heuer Microtimer 

Inspired by TAG Heuer’s 

sponsorship of Formula One 

racing, the Micrograph was the 

first the quartz watch to allow 

for accuracy to 1/1000th of a 

second. 

TAG Heuer Mikrotimer 

Flying 1000 

Retailing at $89,000, the 

Mikrotimer is the world’s firstever 

mechanical chronograph 

to measure and display the 

1/1,000th of a second. 


WOMEN’S SPORT 

Qatari women strike gold at the 12th Arab Games Doha 2011 

THE 12TH ARAB Games Doha 2011 will be 

remembered as a breakthrough event in the 

development of women’s sport in Qatar. 

Qatar’s female contingent delivered an 

unprecedented 32 of the 110 medals won by the 

host nation in December – highlighting the Gulf 

state’s determination to make a mark in women’s 

sport internationally. 

More than 750 female athletes from across the 

Arab world took part in the Games – the highest 

number of women to have participated in any 

Arab Games – with the hosts fielding a team of 

100 women athletes, comprising 40 per cent of the 

Qatari delegation. 

Qatari women competed in 16 the 29 individual 

and team sports featured at the Arab Games and 

gathered a remarkable 10 individual and team 

gold medals in shooting, gymnastics and chess. 

But the statistics don’t tell the human stories 

behind the success. 

Qatar’s best two athletes overall in the Arab 

Games were female… and both are still in 

their teens. 

Rifle shooter Bahiya Al Hamad, 19, won three 

gold and two silver medals, while the 16-year-old 

gymnast Shaden Wahdan - the first woman ever 

to compete for Qatar in an Olympic event at the 

Youth Olympic Games in Singapore 2010 - won 

two golds (one on the beam and one the floor), 

two silvers and one bronze. 

“I can’t describe my feelings,” said Shaden. 

“I wanted to win a medal for Qatar, but now, I’ve 

five. I’ve raised the bar for myself and I need to 

keep performing at that level.” 

During an Arab Games full of firsts for Qatar, 

the hosts also introduced its first female golfers 

and swimmers to the event. 

Yasmine Al-Sharshani, 25, the only Qatari 

female golfer represented at the Arab Games, is 

one of just three female golfers in the Qatar Golf 

Association. Al-Sharshani graduated from the 

Sports Science Programme at Qatar University 

and looks forward to becoming a seasoned 

professional golfer in the future. 

“Golf is a game that needs patience and an 

immense amount of concentration. It’s a tactical 

sport, and that is what I love about it,” she says. 

“I started playing three years ago and 

participated in local tournaments on a weekly basis. 

My participation in the Arab Games Doha 2011 

was an extremely important experience for me.” 

Al-Sharshani represented Qatar at the Arab Golf 

Championships in Morocco last September, and is 

actively working to increase this number of Qatari 

women’s golfers through her personal web page. 

But change won’t happen overnight. 

“There aren’t a lot of Qatari or Arab female 

golfers due to a lack of knowledge about women 

participating in less conventional sports like golf,” 

she says, 

“Therefore, I feel like lucky that my country 

provided me with the opportunity, through an 

education in sports, to learn about golf. My studies 

encouraged me and I loved the game so I started 

reading and learning more about it.” 

“I want to compete and win medals. 

It [going to London 2012]would be 

such a great experience.” 

Another Arab Games debutant was Nada Abdul 

Waffa, 17, who was taking part in her first regional 

swimming competition alongside fellow Arab 

female swimmers at the Arab Games Doha 2011. 

A student at Doha College, Waffa trains at 

the state-of-the-art Hamad Aquatic Center six 

times a week. “At the Arab Games, my goal was 

to be the best I can …and I achieved it. I owe my 

accomplishment to the faith that has been put in 

me by my coach, my family, and most importantly 

my country, Qatar,” she said. “The training 

facilities are excellent, my coach is great, and even 

as the only female swimmer on the team, my 

needs are catered for beyond expectations.” 

Wafa beat her best in the 50m breaststroke by 

three seconds and missed the finals by one second. 

She also improved her time in the 50m freestyle 

by one second and beat her personal best in the 

100m breaststroke. “It was amazing experience,” 

Wafa enthused. “I had so little time to train, but I 

finished seconds away from champions. I am so 

happy with my results.” 


From the top: Rifle shooter Bahiya Al Hamad; 

gymnast Shaden Wahdan; golfer Yasmine Al- 

Sharshani; and swimmer Nada Abdul Waffa. 

Right: Shaden Wahdan competes in the 

trampoline at the 12th Arab Games. 

Whether any members of this new 

generation of Qatari sportswomen will qualify 

for the London 2012 Olympic Games is 

another matter. 

Although Qatar has never sent female 

athletes to the Olympics before, Arab Games 

Organising Committee (AGOC) Chairman 

and QOC General Secretary Sheikh Saoud Bin 

Abdulrahman Al-Thani, says the only reason 

Qatari women were not included at the 2008 

Olympic Games in Beijing was because they 

didn’t qualify in any sport. 

Sheikh Saoud points to the Qatari female 

athletes who have competed in international 

tournaments for the past three years, including 

last year’s Youth Olympics in Singapore, and 

hopes that that new generation of Qatari 

women athletes will one day become “Olympic 

champions in front of their home fans”. 

Sheikh Saoud added that Qatar is also 

talking to the IOC about sending female 

athletes to the Olympic Games in London on 

wild-card invitations. 

Which takes us back to the one of the stars 

of the Arab Games and her aspirations for 

London 2012. 

“I want to compete and win medals,” the 

teenage gymnast Shaden Wahdan said in 

December. “It [going to London 2012]would 

be such a great experience.” 


Leaders: Incisive opinion and lively debate 

IS MODERN SPORT 

MIGRATING FROM 

WEST TO EAST? 

BY PROFESSOR SIMON CHADWICK, PROFESSOR 

OF SPORT BUSINESS STRATEGY AND MARKETING 

AT COVENTRY UNIVERSITY BUSINESS SCHOOL, 

UNITED KINGDOM 

IF ONE LOOKS back to the 19th century, the history of sport 

during this era was one of European pre-eminence – a ‘European 

Model’ of sport. During this era, sports such as football developed 

IN BRIEF 

Professor Simon Chadwick is an 

internationally-renown expert on 

sports marketing, and the commercial 

development and management of 

professional sport. 

through custom and practice, and were later codified to become the basis of sports that are still played today. 

Several sporting mega-events, like cycling’s Tour de France, were also a product of the era, and many are 

still being staged even now. 

SPORT AS BUSINESS 

As the 20th century progressed, a ‘North American model’ of sport emerged, initially paralleling the 

European model. Latterly, this model appeared to transcend the European model leading to the development 

of a business and managerial focus on sport. Yet while some sports, and the organisations within them, 

continue to grapple with the ramifications of sport’s 20th century model, a new model appears to be 

emerging. It seems increasingly likely that the 21st century will see the emergence and eventual dominance 

of an ‘Asian model’ of sport. 

THE ASIAN MODEL 

We already have ample evidence that this is happening. The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, for example, 

was notable not just for the financial commitment of the Chinese government to the event, but also for the 

way in which a sporting mega-event became the focal point for the re-branding and symbolic re-birth of 

a nation. More recently, Qatar has won the right to stage the 2022 FIFA World Cup, an achievement that 

signifies how important the Asian model is becoming. 

The Qatari experience is an interesting one: just as some countries may seek to invest in manufacturing, 

electronics or tourism as the basis for building and sustaining economic activity, so the Qatari government 

has adopted sport as a central strategic pillar. 

The financial benefits of natural resource endowments, such as oil and gas supplies, have also enabled 

countries like Kazakhstan to underwrite their sporting strategies. At the same time, countries such as China 

have used revenues derived from their international and industrial competitive advantages to build upon 

their investments in sport. 

GLOBAL BALANCE 

In many ways, shifts in the global balance in economic power have simultaneously created and mirrored the 

global shift in sport. Recent economic problems in the West have seemingly served to amplify the changes in 

world sport that have taken place over the last decade or so. 

As governing bodies and federations have sought to award events to countries that can offer financial 

stability and investment, sponsors and other commercial partners involved in are forever keen to pursue 

new business opportunities in and around sport. 

At the same time, governments in the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and beyond have 

committed to building their sporting economies and associated industrial infrastructure. 

This means that what may have appeared to be a gradual West-East drift in the world’s sporting 

powerbase, has in fact become something much more significant, substantial and paradigm-shifting. 

We therefore look forward to the remainder of this century for the further developments it is likely 

to bring. 


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Leaders: Incisive opinion and lively debate 

WHAT IMPACT WILL 

THE ICSS MAKE ON 

GLOBAL SPORT OVER 

THE COMING DECADES? 

BY MOHAMMED HANZAB, PRESIDENT OF 

THE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR SPORT 

SECURITY (ICSS) 

IN BRIEF 

Mohammed Hanzab is a former 

Lieutenant Colonel in the Qatar 

Armed Forces. During his extensive 

service, he worked across multiple 

areas of defence strategy. 

THESE ARE TRULY exciting times for the business of sport. 

Over the next decade, we will see some of the world’s biggest 

sporting events take place in new territories, including the likes of Brazil, Russia, and, of course, Qatar and 

the wider Middle East. As we have seen with previous host nations like South Africa, who hosted the FIFA 

World Cup in 2010, staging safe sporting events can have a direct impact on how a nation is perceived as well 

as achieving wider economic and social goals.This topic will be addressed in more detail in 2012, when the 

International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) publishes its research report examining the ‘Socio-Economic 

Benefits of Security Investments in Major Sporting Events’. 

Nevertheless, having spoken with major event organisers and Heads of Security around the world about 

the various benefits of hosting major sporting events, it was clear that, far too often, security planning for 

major events started with a blank sheet of paper, and did not build on successful planning and learnings from 

previous events. Consequently, major-event security is becoming an ever-more critical and complex practice. 

With this in mind, the ICSS’s goal is to become a global hub for developing and sharing best practice in 

sport security and ultimately, helping major event organisers stage safer, securer major events. 

SHARING KNOWLEDGE 

Over the next 10 years, the ICSS will proactively address real issues and disseminate best-practice in the 

field of sport security. The ICSS has set up a number of public and private forums to discuss the challenges 

currently facing governments and major event organizers, such as the International Sport Security 

Conference, the 2nd edition of which will take place in Doha, March 14-15, 2012, and the closed-doors Expert 

Summit series, which provides major event organisers with the opportunity to share knowledge and discuss 

some of the most pressing issues currently facing the industry today. 

Furthermore, at the ICSS, our growing network of global sport security practitioners, have started work 

to develop a groundbreaking research database, known as the ICSS Knowledge Portal. As part of the ICSS’s 

strategy to continuously develop new research and training methods for major event organisers, the ICSS 

Knowledge Portal will bring together knowledge from the public, private and academic sector, to provide 

sport security practitioners with an invaluable resource to turn to over the next decade and beyond. 

EARLY PLANNING 

One of the biggest lessons we have learnt from major events is the need to start the planning early and embed 

security at the heart of the project. The ICSS’s recent agreement with the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee 

represents a landmark opportunity, which will see both organisations collaborate and embed safety and 

security from the early stages of planning. With an estimated 800,000 fans set to visit the country during the 

tournament, Qatar 2022 represents a truly fantastic opportunity to showcase football throughout Qatar and 

the wider Middle East. 

The ICSS is committed to delivering a security concept that ensures players, coaches and visitors from 

around the world have both a successful and enjoyable tournament. As our global network of practitioners 

grows, the ICSS is continuously looking to expand its involvement across a range of sport and major events to 

achieve our vision of becoming a leading organisation in the field of sport security. 

Our next step in this journey is our 2nd International Sport Security Conference where we will discuss the 

future of major sporting events and the industry as a whole. 


Hosted by 

14-15 March 2012 

Doha, Qatar 

ICSS 

INTERNATIONAL CENTRE 

FOR SPORT SECURITY 

Creating a platforM 

for growtH tHrougH 

safe sporting events 

highlights include: qatar 2022 supreme committee keynote speech hassan al-thawadi (general 

secretary, supreme Committee, 2022 fifa world Cup Qatar, which recently signed an agreement with conference hosts, the iCss, to 

collaborate on safety and security planning for the tournament) london 2012 security panel lord stevens of kirkwelpington 

(former Commissioner, london Metropolitan police) dr. peter ryan (security advisor to the international olympic Committee) John yates 

(former assistant Commissioner, london Metropolitan police) david greer (Ceo, skills for security – london 2012 partner) brazil in the 

spotlight panel dr. José mariano beltrame (secretary for public safety, rio De Janeiro) José ricardo botelho (national secretary 

for public safety for Major events, Brazil) other speakers khoo boon hui (president of interpol) horst r. schmidt (treasurer of the german 

football association (DfB)) sir dave richards (Chairman of the english premier league) marc trimmer (Head of security and stadia, uefa) 

ORGANIZERS • BID COMMITTEES • SPORT FEDERATIONS • SECURITY EXPERTS • SPONSORS • DEVELOPERS 

the 2nd international sport security Conference will consider how safe sporting events can deliver long-term economic and social 

benefits through private and public investment in infrastructure and security. places are strictly limited. to be part of this exclusive 

gathering of the world’s leading sport security experts and decision-makers, register at the conference website today: 

W: internationalsportsecurityConference.com e: rsvp.conference.2012@theicss.org

FOR THE RECORD: WHO’S MAKING HEADLINES IN SPORT WORLDWIDE? 

SEBASTIAN VETTEL 

At the age of just 24 years and 98 days, Germany’s Sebastian 

Vettel became the youngest ever winner of back-to-back World 

Championships when he cruised to third place in the Japan 

Grand Prix on October 9 to take an unassailable lead in the 

Formula One series. 

The Red Bull driver joined a select club of nine drivers to 

have successfully defended the title – and went on to establish 

a new world record for most pole positions (15) in a season, 

beating the 14-pole mark set in 1992 by Britain’s Nigel Mansell. 

Modest and self-deprecating in a sport of super-charged egos, 

Vettel insists Red Bull’s team spirit was the secret to his success 

last season. 

The team never lost focus despite the car being “less 

dominant” than last year, he said: “It’s really incredible, going 

into the season we thought we had a competitive car and that 

maybe we could win some races, but it has been phenomenal. 

The team has been faultless most of the time.” 

But the driver deserves more credit than he gives himself: in 

2011, Vettel proved that he is not only a great talent but a great 

champion too. 

Back-to-back F1 World Champions 

Sebastian Vettel (GER) 2010-2011 

Fernando Alonso (ESP) 2005-2006 

Michael Schumacher (GER) 1994-1995 2000-2004 

Mika Hakkinen (FIN) 1998-1999 

Ayrton Senna (BRA) 1990-1991 

Alain Prost (FRA) 1985-1986 

Jack Brabham (AUS) 1959-1960 

Juan Manuel Fangio (ARG) 1954-1957 

Alberto Ascari (IT) 1952-1953 

NICOL DAVID 

Malaysian squash superstar Nicol David reached a new 

milestone in her brilliant career when she became the first 

active player in the history of the sport to be inducted into the 

World Squash Federation Hall of Fame. David, who has led the 

women’s world rankings since 2006, was inducted during the 

2011 World Open Championships in November. 

Top raked women’s squash players (2002-2011) 

Nicol David (MAS) 2011 






Vanessa Atkinson (AUS) 2005 

Rachael Grinham (AUS) 2004 

Carol Owens (AUS) 2003 

Sarah Fitz-Gerald (AUS) 2002 


YANI TSENG 

In 2011, Taiwan’s world number one female golfer Yani Tseng 

became the youngest golfer at age 22 to win five major 

championships - younger even than Tiger Woods, who won 

his fifth Major when he was 24 years old. Over the course of 

the season, Tseng racked up 12 titles en route to her second 

consecutive LPGA Player of the Year award. 

Youngest winners of five golf Majors 

PATRICK MAKAU MUSYOKI 

Kenya’s Patrick Makau Musyoki had his marathon world 

record ratified by the IAAF in December, officially ending Haile 

Gebrselassie’s three-year reign as world record holder. Maku 

finished the BMW Berlin Marathon with a time of 2:03:38 

in September, breaking the great Ethiopian runner’s previous 

record of 2:03:59, which he ran at the same race in 2008. 

Men’s marathon records 

Yani Tseng (KOR) 

Tiger Woods (USA) 

Bobby Jones (USA) 

Patty Berg (USA) 

Jack Nicklaus (USA) 

Kathryn "Mickey" Wright (USA) 

Walter Hagen (USA) 

Peter Thomson (AUS) 

Se Ri Pak (KOR) 

Gene Sarazen (USA 

22 yrs 

24 yrs 

24 yrs 

25 yrs 

26 yrs 

26 yrs 

26 yrs 

28 yrs 

29 yrs 

30 yrs 

Patrick Makau (KEN) 2:03:38 (2011) 

Haile Gebrselassie (ETH) 2:03:59 (2008) 

Haile Gebrselassie (ETH) 2:04:26 (2007) 

Paul Tergat (KEN) 2:04:55 (2003) 

Khalid Khannouchi (MOR) 2:05:38 (2002) 

Khalid Khannouchi (USA) 2:05:42 (1999) 

Ronaldo da Costa (POR) 2:06:05 (1998) 

Belayneh Dinsamo (ETH) 2:06:50 (1988) 

Carlos Lopes (POR) 2:07:12 (1985) 

Steve Jones (GB) 2:08:05 (1984) 

PETRA KVITOVA 

Russia’s Petra Kvitova began the 2011 season outside the 

women’s tennis top 30, but capped a breakthrough year by 

recording a three-sets victory over Victoria Azarenka to capture 

the WTA Championships in Turkey. With this victory, the new 

women’s tennis number two equaled the top-ranked Caroline 

Wozniacki’s score of six titles for the 2011 WTA season. 

WTA year-end rankings 2011 

Caroline Wozniacki (DEN) 

Petra Kvitova (RUS) 

Victoria Azarenka (BaLR) 

Maria Sharapova (RUS) 

LI Na (CHN) 

Samantha Stosur (AUS) 

Vera Zvonareva (RUS) 

Agnieszka Radwanska (POL) 

Marion Bartoli (FRA) 

Andrea Petkovic (GER) 

7485 pts 

7370 pts 

6520 pts 

6510 pts 

5720 pts 

5585 pts 

5435 pts 

5250 pts 

4710 pts 

4580 pts 


INDIGENOUS SPORTS 

wide world of sport 

While football, tennis and other major sports tend to dominate the global media landscape, 

almost every part of the world has developed indigenous sports, which are an important 

part of national and regional culture. In fact, some are beginning to expand and build new 

followings way beyond their roots. It’s all part of the world’s rich and diverse diet of sport. 

lacrosse 

Lacrosse is a traditional Native 

American sport which, at one 

time, would have been played by 

teams of up to 1,000 men on a 

fi eld 3 kilometres long. 

Today it has been refined and 

developed to become a popular 

sport in its heartland of the United 

States and Canada and is attracting 

new players around the world. 

Lacrosse is played by both men 

and women in teams of 10. They 

aim to score goals by moving and 

passing the ball using a lacrosse 

stick with a net at one end. 

The game is played extensively 

at colleges across North America 

where the men’s game has 

professional indoor (box lacrosse) 

and outdoor (field lacrosse) leagues. The record attendance for fi eld lacrosse was 

20,116 for a game in Denver, USA in 2008. 

Twenty nine national teams took part in the 2010 World Championships in 

Manchester, England, won by the USA which beat Canada in the final. 

In keeping with its roots, the World Championships include a the Iroquois 

Nationals, a team made up from the six nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, the 

only native Canadian team sanctioned to compete in international sport. 

real tennis 

Real Tennis has a legitimate claim to the title ‘the sport of Kings’ and Henry VIII 

of England, John III of Sweden and Louis X of France are among the crowned 

heads of Europe who played and built the courts which gave the world the 

forerunner of today’s racquet sports. In fact, some historians tell us that Anne 

Boleyn was watching Henry VIII play at Hampton Court when she was arrested and 

subsequently executed. 

Using the walls and roofs to fashion winning shots makes real tennis a sport of 

tremendous skill as well as stamina but it has been in decline for a considerable 

time and today is played only on a small number of courts in England, France, the 

United States and Australia. 

Despite that, it is played by men and women and supports professional tours. The 

men’s game has been dominated by the Australian Robert Fahey who has won every 

world singles championship since 1994. 


andy 

Think field hockey on ice and you begin to get an idea of the demands of Bandy, a 

sport which originated in Russia and Scandinavia but is now played on four continents. 

Bandy dates back to at least the 19th century and is played on an ice field the 

size of a soccer pitch by two teams of 11 skaters who dribble and pass a round ball 

towards goal using hockey-style sticks. 

The game has many similarities to soccer and is known as “winter football” in 

Scandinavia where top games attract huge crowds. 

Japan recently became a member of the International Bandy Federation and the 

sport, which had exhibition status at the 1952 Winter Olympic Games, was included 

in the programme at the 2011 Asian Winter Games. 

The popularity of the sport in Sweden is illustrated by the crowds of more than 

30,000 who traditionally turn out for the championship game which, from 2013 will 

be played indoors at the new Swedbank arena in Stockholm. 

The current Bandy World Champions are Russia, who beat Finland in the final of 

the 2011 tournament played in Kazan while the World Cup for clubs is held by the 

Russian team Yenisey. 

bull riding 

The roots of bull riding lie deep in ancient history but today’s globally televised 

sport owes its existence to the American rodeo. 

In its simplest terms this is a contest between man and bull which can be fatal 

to the human. To score points a rider must stay on the back of a massive, specially 

selected bucking bull for as long as possible before being thrown to ground. 

Today bull riding has 

become a truly international 

sport, screened around the 

world on television and 

featuring riders from many 

different countries including 

Australia and New Zealand. 

The earning riders are 

Guilherme March of Brazil 

who has pocketed $3.86 

million during his career, Chris 

Shivers of the USA with $3.85 

million and fellow American 

Mike Lee with $2.95 million. 


INDIGENOUS SPORTS 

australian 

rules football 

Like the kangaroo and wallaby, ‘Footy’ is indigenous 

to Australia where it is the main sporting passion 

for millions of fans from its birthplace in the state 

of Victoria to new markets including Sydney, Perth 

and Brisbane. 

For years Aussie Rules was a local affair. The 

Victoria Football League oversaw competitions for 

professional clubs based in and around the Sate 

Capital of Melbourne. But after years of neglect, 

mismanagement and decline, the sport was re-born 

as the Australian Football League with clubs across 

the huge country. Today it is played by millions 

of junior and amateur players and professional 

games attract crowds of more than 100,000 to the 

Melbourne Cricket Ground. 

alejdeyr and al guellina 

As in many Arab countries, children play games created in their village, district or 

communities. Before the oil boom, which has changed the lives of people in the Gulf 

region, children played games or sports using the materials available to them. 

Qatari children, for example, used to play a game in the old narrow streets or 

wastelands of Doha, which resembles the modern sport of golf. The name of the 

game is Alejdeyr or Al Reyn. It is played two teams of four to six and requires one 

player per team to throw the ball, which is the size of a tennis ball, into one of two 

holes dug in the middle ground. If he succeeds, he can then go after his opponents 

trying to hit them with the ball and score points. 

Al Guellina is another Qatari game, which has some similarities to cricket or 

baseball-type games. The Guellina is a small piece of wood, sharpened on both 

sides and placed on the ground. The player uses a sort of bat called a ‘Matooa’ 

with which he fl ips up the Guellina on one of its sharp sides. He then hits it as far 

as possible from the reach of his opponents. If a fielder catches the Guellina and 

throws it back into a circle then the fi elding side goes into bat. 

sepak takraw 

South East Asia’s spectacular 

contribution to the world sports map 

is Sepak takraw a simple but hugely 

athletic and exciting sport which is 

most easily compared to volleyball…. 

played with the feet. 

Players use parts of the body other 

than their hands to propel a rattan 

ball over a 1.55 metres high net which 

separates the teams of three players. 

It is a sport which demands tremendous skill and dexterity and which is beginning 

to build a fan and player base beyond its heartlands of Thailand and Malaysia, where 

people played the game as far back as the 15th century. 

Although it is not an Olympic Sport, sepak takraw is included in the Asian 

Games and Southeast Asian Games. The International Sepak Takraw Federation 

ranking includes 34 nations. 


Preparing For Child Birth 

Mentally and Physically 

For information on the Pre & Post Natal Program, please contact 

ASPIRE ACTIVE Ladies Club at (+974) 4413 6219 or visit our 

www.aspire.qa/active

TRENDS 

FRENCH CLUBS PLAY CATCH-UP 

French football is getting its commercial act together. 

FRENCH FOOTBALL’S LIgue 1 is the 

least wealthy of the “big five” European 

leagues after England’s Premier League, 

Spain’s La Liga, Germany’s Bundesliga and 

Italy’s Serie A. 

But its commercial value in terms of 

team sponsorship could be on the rise 

thanks partly to the financial backing of 

the Qatar Investment Authority in one of 

the league’s most famous clubs. 

The entrance of Qatari investors into 

French football as primary owners of Paris 

Saint Germain at the beginning of 2011 

was undoubtedly the most important 

development in Ligue 1’s commercial 

landscape last year. 

This arrival generated upwards of €70m 

in transfer fees in a league braced for a 

slow economic start to this season after 

a dull summer on the sponsorship and 

transfer market. 

As the table shows, Olympique 

Lyonnais and Olympique Marseille, 

the two most consistent UEFA French 

Champions League participants, top the 

current list of club kit commercial income 

in Ligue 1. 

But Paris Saint-Germain should soon 

join these regional powerhouses as UEFA 

Champions League regulars, bolstering 

the commercial value of the top French 

league’s only Paris-based club. 

Despite this new money, Ligue 1’s 

second-tier teams are continuing to 

struggle to attract major sponsors, 

resulting in several of them sporting 

multiple brand logos on their shirt instead 

of one primary partner like most of their 

European rivals. 

But there is another trend that may 

make French football more competitive in 

the future and more attractive to sponsors. 

Nine French cities will stage games 

during the France-hosted UEFA Euro 

2016: Lens, Marseille, Nancy, Nice, Paris 

and Saint-Denis will play in existing 

facilities, but Lyon, Bordeaux, Lille and 

Nice will build new stadia. 

Quite apart from the boost these new 

stadia will bring to the fan experience and 

attendance figures, each of these stadia 

will surely have naming rights partners 

attached, bringing many more millions of 

euros into the league. 

Another factor to take into 

consideration is the potential 

attractiveness of the French football league 

now that its major clubs are recruiting 

high-calibre, internationally-renowned, 

foreign players. 

The likes of Javier Pastore (from 

Palermo to Paris St Germain for €39.8 

million) and Joe Cole (on loan from 

Liverpool FC to Lille) will help the French 

sponsorship landscape evolve even further 

and lure foreign brands and investors in 

the coming years. 

Indeed, the next few years represent an 

important period for the French football 

market and it is one that clubs will be 

looking forward to with excitement. 

The influx of foreign money, foreign 

superstars and hosting Euro 2016 may 

prove the catalyst for sponsor brands to 

turn their attention to France and sign 

long-terms deals with the country’s major 

football clubs. 

As ever though, each team’s on-pitch 

performance - both at home and in Europe 

– will likely determine how commercially 

attractive Ligue 1 will become. 

PSG’s star signing: 

Javier Pastore. 

The influx of foreign money, 

foreign superstars and hosting 

Euro 2016 may prove the 

catalyst for French football. 

LIGUE 1 SHIRT SPONSORSHIPS 

Club 

Total sponsorship 

value per year (€)* 

Lyon 

17m 

Marseille 

17m 

Paris Saint-Germain 

11m 

Bordeaux 5.5m 

Lille 

5m 

Toulouse 

3m 

Saint-Étienne 

3m 

Rennes 2.5m 

Valenciennes 2.5m 

Évian 2.1m 

Auxerre 

2m 

Caen 

2m 

Montpellier 1.85m 

Lorient 1.8m 

Nancy 1.6m 

Nice 1.5m 

Brest 1.5m 

Ajaccio 0.95m 

Dijon 

Undisclosed 

Sochaux 

Undisclosed 

*The total values are inclusive of all kit sponsors, front of shirt sponsor, 

back of shirt sponsors, pocket sponsors, sleeve sponsor and short sponsor 

for French Ligue 1 clubs 2011/2012.

Qatar sport COVER.indd - Qatar Olympic Committee

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