ASPIRE’s nine strong group of multi-sports students returned this week from an intensive training camp in Stellenbosch, South Africa, having learned important new skills and also that a number of them may have a promising future in at least one of the sports they had the opportunity to try whilst there.
The Doha based Academy for Sports Excellence offers an unparalleled sporting, academic and social education to its students who are selected based on their potential to forge successful lifetime careers in sport.
Attempts are made to match an individual’s abilities with the sport he is best suited to in order to maximise both the student’s enjoyment of learning and chances of success at a later stage. However, some students showing a genuine aptitude for sport are harder to place within a specific program, and this is where the multi-sport coaches step in.
Over a two year cycle students in the group will be exposed to around 15 different sports – some of which will be completely alien to them – meaning around a month, or 20 training sessions, will be devoted to each discipline.
‘That affords both the federation and myself enough time to see how their skills have developed, how fast those skills have been picked up and implemented,’ explains Malcolm Geluk, Senior Coach with ASPIRE’s multi-sports program, who led the winter training camp.
‘But also, importantly, though we are trying to find them sports, whatever sport they do you are always going to have cross-over with other sports somewhere in there. So the more adept they become and the more skills they can pick up in each sport, it is going to help them somewhere else, too.’
Whilst in South Africa students had daily training sessions of water polo and field hockey, with local coaches of both positive about ASPIRE’s student athletes’ aptitude and application.
‘The idea with water polo was to assess the boys’ ability,’ continues Geluk. ‘We see this as a sport that the boys may go into because Qatar has a team that comes under the Swimming Federation. It is therefore a legitimate option to assess their ability and go that way.
‘With field hockey it is more a case of looking at skill acquisition, motor skill development and neuron-pathway development; where they actually learn something new.
‘So with a sport like that where they have no experience whatsoever, and even a limited background in having seen the game played, you get a clear picture of the boys at a raw level and get to see how quickly they can pick up a new sport.’
Despite being fresh to the game, with the majority of students having first picked up a hockey stick just two weeks previously, ASPIRE’s boys put in a creditable performance in going down 2-1 to a local school’s trial team at the end of the trip.
Success was also enjoyed in the pool, with three of the boys showing enough to convince Geluk that they may, with the cooperation and support of Qatar’s Swimming Federation, be able to specialize in water polo some time in the future.
Sporting achievement is of course central to ASPIRE’s philosophy and vision. But other aspects of the boys’ development are also addressed and in this, Geluk feels, training camps play a vital role in the maturation process.
‘The cultural and social elements have to be given importance; it’s one of the fundamental reasons for going away on camps,’ he stresses.
‘I tried to mirror a lot of what we do at ASPIRE. So on Fridays they had the morning off then went to the Mosque for prayers in the early afternoon. We also took time out to visit Table Mountain and the Two Oceans Aquarium as well.
‘The difficulties of managing food, accommodation and other logistical things are always going to help grow the boy as an athlete. They will be better prepared when they move the next level up.
‘You don’t want to hold their hands all they way. We give them a bit of extra responsibility – they have to get the equipment organized, they have to get up and be on time for training. These things all contribute to their overall development.’
About ASPIRE
ASPIRE, the Academy for Sports Excellence, Doha, was created with the dual aims of identifying and transforming promising student athletes into world renowned champions across a wide range of sports and to act as a beacon to draw sporting culture into the centre of life in Qatar and the surrounding region.
The Academy is distinguished by a philosophy which aims to develop the whole student, providing them with full academic, social and sporting development.
Unrivalled facilities mark the Academy out as one of the world’s foremost sporting and educational institutions, and entice an ever increasing number of visitors from across the spectrum of world sports to use or simply view them. These same facilities will also play host to events during the forthcoming Asian Games 2006.
With one indoor and seven outdoor football pitches, athletics tracks, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, diving pool, combat arenas, gymnastics arena, specially designed weight rooms, lecture halls, dormitories to accommodate what will eventually become 1,000 students, a medical centre and more besides, much beneath the world’s largest purpose built indoor sports dome, every aspect of the development of elite athletes is catered for. ASPIRE is a place for those who dare to dream.
ASPIRE TODAY, INSPIRE TOMORROW
www.aspire.qa
