Silver medal for ASPIRE at the 6th IAAF World Youth Championships in athletics

At the IAAF World Youth Championships in Bressanone, Italy, Mahamad Almanai won the silver medal in the Octathlon for boys. This was the first medal for Qatar in this event at these championships. He has not only set a new personal and Arab record, he has also beaten some of the well established athletes from Russia or Germany. With his result of 6.258 points, he is currently ranked number two in the world in the under 18 age group. Four years after Mahamad was identified by ASPIRE, the 889 training sessions, 13 training and competition camps have paid back all the efforts. This is truly a performance made in Qatar, made in ASPIRE.
After the first day the 16year old Qatari was already in third position - a little bit to the surprise of head coach Ralf Iwan. The 17 year old athlete was on track with a 100m time of 11.31s and a very good long jump of 7.01m. A little bit of a disappointment were the 14.20m in the shot-put, as this performance was 1 ½ meter below Mahamad’s personal best. But luckily other athletes struggled in this event as well. The final event of the first day, the 400m, were Mahamad’s best event, as he was the fastest of all 16 competitors running to a new personal best of 50.31s. Overall, Mahamad was ranked third after four events, to the surprise of the athletes and the coaches.
The key in the combined events, the technically as well as physically most demanding event in athletics, is the recovery between the two competition days. As the accommodation of the Qatar team was located to one of the ice cold streams coming down from the alpine mountains, the coaches took Mahamad to a short recovery bath in the ice water in the nearby stream. After a good meal and a refreshing sleep the second day began with the 110mHurdles and a new personal best of 14.51s. The following high-jump is normally one of Mahamad’s best events. However, the start was more than rusty, as he had to start already at 1.77m and had some problems. But as a good competitor and an athlete with fighting spirit, he found back into the competition and finally was one of the last boys in the competition. With 1.98m he could add another personal best to his result sheet, bringing him back to the 3rd place overall. At this stage, coaches from other countries like Russia and Germany started to wonder, when the poor event of this Qatari athlete will come, as no one had this boy on the list as a potential medal winner. How strong is his javelin throw and how fast can he run the final 1.000m? With another personal best right in his first attempt of 48.56m, Mahamed made clear that he want’s to go for a medal here at these championships. Before the final 1.000m the situation was clear. Mahamad was on the third place. To defend his bronze Medal, he had the Russian Maksim Fayzulin only 3 seconds behind him, to win the silver medal, the German Stefan Klink was 8 seconds in front of him. Together with Coach Ramil Ganiev, Head-Coach Ralf Iwan discussed the tactics with Mahamad, to ensure that he is not over pacing the race and keeping the Russian Fayzulin behind him at the same time. Mahamad did a great job, running exactly the times the coaches told him and was then even able after 700m to attack the German Stefan Klink and to win the Silver Medal.
“I’m obviously very pleased with the results and I’m very happy for Mahamad, as he has proven to be a real champion here in the competition. But this performance is not a surprise, but the result of a four year master plan and carefully planned sporting career for Mahamad. A lot of people have their share in this success, from coaches, sport scientist, physiotherapists to nutritionists”, comments the head coach. After coaching athletes to medals at major championships in Germany, South-Africa and the England, this is the fourth country where the German Head Coach could deliver a successful athletics program which has produced medals. Because besides the silver medal in the octathlon, also the other six athletes from ASPIRE have all performed well: Abu Baker Omar, reached with a new personal best the 2nd round in the 800m, Ahmad Jaad ran a new seasons best over 3.000m as well as Mohamed Waleed, who ran a seasons best over 100m in 11.32 seconds. High Jumper Abdullah Noor, equaled his personal best with 2.00m and was really unlucky not to reach the final. Moayaad Ahmed, who started last week in the Asian Youth Games over 800m, achieved 2:03min in the 800m here in Bressanone. Compared to the last IAAF World Youth Championships 2007 in Ostrava, where three ASPIRE athletes competed and one made the final, this year six athletes competed, with one athlete winning a medal and one athlete advancing to the second round in his event.

Ralf Iwan, Head Coach Athletics at the ASPIRE Academy for Sports excellence in Doha, Qatar. The 43year has set up and manages the successful athletics department at the academy since 2005. He selected Almanai in 2005 for the academy and led him to the success at the 6th IAAF World Youth Championships in Athletics. He previously worked full time for UK Athletics and the German sports Club TSV Bayer Dormagen. He was also honorary coach the athletics federations in Germany (DLV) and South-Africa (ASA).

Further Information available
Ralf Iwan
Doha, Qatar
Phone +974-5731541
www.ralf-iwan.com
Ralf.Iwan@gmail.com

This release was published on openPR.