Qatar's largest ever olympic team heads to Rio

BIGGEST QATAR OLYMPIC TEAM IN HISTORY HEADING TO RIO2016

The Olympics is the ultimate show of national pride and identity.

It takes an exceptional person to be an Olympian. He or she has to be determined, focused, committed, and tough, both physically and mentally. 

It’s fair to say that the Olympics places special pressure on most athletes. Of all sporting events, the Olympics certainly comes with the greatest pressure – nothing else matches it,  not the World Series, not Wimbledon or the Masters. The combination of the once-every-four years pressure and the intense nationalism of the Olympics. For athletes in many sports, it is only at the Olympics that they face the media frenzy and worldwide attention. Whle some athletes excel under the spotlight  and perform their best under pressure, others come up short of expectations when placed under all this attention.

This year sees Qatar presenting0 the biggest Qatar Team in history.

Team Qatar contains significant strength and depth with reigning world and Olympic medallists amongst its ranks. Nasser Al-Attiya, who won bronze in the skeet shooting at London 2012, will return for his sixth consecutive Olympic Games. Fellow London 2012 Olympic bronze medallist, Mutaz Barshim – who in 2014 was just 2cm away from Javier Sotomayor of Cuba’s 23 year old world record - also returns.

One of Qatar’s first-ever female Olympians, Nada Arkaji will also be returning for her second consecutive Olympic Games when she competes in the 200m freestyle and 100m butterfly swimming events.

Other returning London 2012 Olympians include reigning Asian Athletics Champions, Musaeb Balla and Mohamed Al Garni who will compete in the 800m and 1500m respectively. Qatar’s world-class athletics team will be completed by double World Junior Champion in the hammer throw, Ashraf Elseify, 2016 World Indoor silver medallist in the 400m, Adelalelah Haroun, and current 100m Asian record-holder, Femi Ogunode, creating a six-strong team and showing the exceptional progress that Qatar has made in athletics development over recent years.

Making their Olympic debuts will be the Men’s Handball team, who won the 2015 World Championship silver medal, and the Equestrian jumping team, who qualified when they won the second stage of the FEI Nations Cup in Abu Dhabi last year.

The youngest member of Team Qatar at just 16 years old is promising young swimmer, Noah Al-Khulaifi, who is currently juggling school with his Olympic career.

The final Qatari Rio 2016 Olympians are Rashid Hamad and Li Peng, who will compete in the skeet shooting and table tennis respectively. Rio 2016 qualification is open until July so there are still further qualification opportunities for Team Qatar.

Under the banner of #YallaQatar, each team and athlete will be profiled through the QOC’s ‘Olympic Dreams’ film series, which will be released regularly on the QOC’s social media channels in the weeks leading up to the games.  Exploring the highs, lows, motivations and dreams of Team Qatar, this campaign gives a real insight into each Qatari athlete that will compete at Rio 2016. 

You can follow Team Qatar on the Qatar Olympic Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube channels under the hashtag #YallaQatar. Get to now Team Qatar, QOC has launched a new athlete section on their website and all of Team Qatar’s biographies can be found here http://www.olympic.qa/en/Pages/Rio2016.aspx. The Rio 2016 Olympic Games take place from 5th August – 21st August.

Follow Team Qatar on social media:

Facebook:     QatarOlympics

Twitter:          Qatar_Olympic

Instagram:    Qatar_Olympic

Snapchat:     Qatar_Olympic

Website:       http://www.olympic.qa/en/Pages/Rio2016.aspx

 By: Zarina Rajah in Collaboration with Qatar Olympic Committee

Images courtesy of Qatar Olympic Committee

Title Image Credit: Doha Stadium Plus Qatar