The Saudi Arabic daily Okaz (translated by Arab News) runs this opinion piece on why the Saudi teams failed to win any medals in Beijing. Saudi competitors are just not ready for this level of competition. There’s not enough money being put into sports, other than football, there’s not a serious sports press, there’s not enough work being done to actually have a chance of winning.
Not mentioned is the lack of any Saudi woman taking part in any competition, either…. From the start, the Saudis have cut their chances of winning medals in half.
Beijing bust a wake-up call
Khaled Hamad Al-Sulaiman I OkazTHOSE who criticize the Saudi failure in Beijing are exaggerating. Did they ever expect us to compete against the rest of the world for gold, silver or even bronze?
Competition requires certain elements and a foundation, which at present we simply do not have. Needless to say, our sporting reality is an open book. Any observer can read failure on its very first page.
We were pinning hope on some individual skills in athletics and equestrian, but instead of apologizing for the failure of his federation, the head of the athletics and equestrian federations threatened his critics with hell upon his return from China.
The star riders could not find horses to mount, so they exchanged the few they had among themselves. The most famous of them was unable to participate in the Olympics because he did not have a horse.
If we had used just a little of the money we spend on team sports — which specialize in failure — to buy a qualified horse, we might have won a medal and saved face.
Our sporting position needs radical changes. This is a demand we make after each failure. The legitimate demand will go into oblivion when we forget our failure in a certain competition.
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August:27:2008 - 18:28
John,
I think the article is getting it wrong by focusing on the federation. The biggest problem in Saudi and all Arabic countries is that sports are centralized. Centralization of sports only works for communist systems like China. Everything in sports in Saudi is managed through a government department that spends money on facilities and athletes. I think the model should change to community and school based programs to involve the kids at an early age and make them fall in love with sports. It will also solve other problems for youth as it gives them alternatives to risky behaviors like racing cars.
I know having a centralized system is much easier, because all you have to do is assign a budget and appoint an administration to it. However, we have seen years of failure resulting from this type of system. Time for a drastic change…
August:27:2008 - 21:22
ouch.
August:27:2008 - 23:23
I think the centralized sports model isn’t the best one. While it can certainly win medals–viz. the communist teams in earlier Olympics and the Chinese this time around–I’m not sure that’s the healthiest for the athletes.
On the other hand, there is arguably too much money spent via commercial sponsorship, too.
The Saudis, and other Gulf Arabs, are certainly able to raise sufficient funds to buy multi-million-dollar race horses (and breeding farms), not to mention expensive camels. One might think they could cough up the funds for the horses and training for equestrian teams at the least.
Maybe someone like Alwaleed bin Talal would even find the cash to support a women’s team?
August:28:2008 - 08:03
A good dressage horse doesn’t have to cost the earth anyway, it only needs to be good. Germany had an Olympic competitor who was in real life a mounted police officer, he rode the Grand Prix competitions on the same horses he rode for his work. Of course he was a real horse-man, and knew how to train a horse and keep it healthy.
As a rider myself I am disgusted with watching the modern grand prix riders, nobody who loves horses should ride like that. But that is another rant.