Friday 15 / November / 2024
Muscat: Rashid Al Kindi, a former athlete and a coach, who went on to become a passionate and popular sports administrator and events organiser, is hoping to team up with some of his committed old colleagues to raise the profile of track and field, and place Oman athletics on a high pedestal, the level it truly deserves.
Rashid, who is currently helping Oman Sail in making short and long term plans aimed at creating national team programmes, has recently announced his intention to contest for the vice-president’s post in the forthcoming board elections of Oman Athletic Association (OAA).
The primary objective of Rashid and his yet to be named fellow contestants for other posts in the OAA elections, which are tentatively fixed for October this year, is to work for the ‘betterment of Oman athletics as a whole’.
While revealing that his colleagues will come forward and announce their candidatures in the coming days, Rashid said: “We have been discussing various issues and hoping to do our bit for the development of athletics for over two years. We all had one common desire in our hearts — to work for the good of Oman athletics. We thought the best way is to come forward and involve ourselves in the day to day affairs of the association and contribute to the development of Oman athletics.”
Rashid, however, refused to say the situation is bad.
“Definitely it is not bad. If it is, we will not have a Barakat (Al Harthy) doing exceptionally well at the international level,” he said.
“But in the last ten to 12 years, if we look back everyone will agree, we could have done better. I should say we had a big opportunity do well. As one of the oldest sports associations in Oman (established in mid 1980s), I should say the OAA should have certainly done better,” he said.
After an active playing career that lasted from 1983 to 1990, Rashid was involved with Oman Athletic Association as a coach, his speciality being middle and long distance, till 2007. At one time he was also involved in the coaching set up of athletes like Hamoud Al Dalhami, 200m Arab champion in 2001, and legendary Mohammed Amer Al Malky, whose exploits include 400m gold medal in 1990 Beijing Asiad.
In 2008 he left Oman athletics body, after being asked by the Ministry of Sports Affairs to join as the Director of Sports at 2010 Asian Beach Games. After the conclusion of the Asian event, he was roped in by Oman Sail.
Along the way, he also launched Excellence Performance an organisation that now involves in conducting international sports events in disciplines that have no official governing bodies yet very popular among the Omani youth, most importantly road running and roller skating.
“All along I had this desire to start contributing again to Oman athletics, which to be frank has always been on the back of mind,” Rashid said.
“As I said for the past two years, we have been thinking and discussing about what is good for Oman athletics. We are looking at these elections as an opportunity to get back into the act of doing something for our athletics.”
More fund for clubs
Before revealing the three-point vision for the ‘better future of Oman athletics’, Rashid said: “First I would like to say with our team the clubs will have a bigger role to play. It doesn’t mean we want to just burden them with more responsibility. On the other hand, we will try to give more funds to the clubs from the annual budget. That amount should be spent on developing the track and field in their respective areas.”
Speaking about their three-point manifesto, Rashid said: “Find the ways to get the maximum number of Omani kids involved with the athletics. And once the best prospects are spotted, nurture them for the future and get the optimum out of them, help them win laurels for the country.”
“There is an urgent need to develop local Omani officials. At the moment, we have just one international referee and even he is not been given the opportunities to travel aboard to officiate at the international events. We certainly need more referees because to have better competitions and better athletes we need better officials,” he said.
“And most importantly we want to create a separate department for marketing and sponsorship. The main aim of this department will be to bring in more funds for the association. We will work with a specific target, of having a quarter million Omani Rials more than the budget by 2020,” he added.
More training centres
Rashid also revealed that his team will work to create more training facilities across the Sultanate.
“We will work to establish four high performance training centres, including the high altitude centres like Jabel Al Akhdar. These centres will have highly qualified coaches. We think we need such facilities to realise our dream of having more of our athletes competing at the Asian Games and Olympics.”
Rashid’s other plans includes hosting international events both track and field as well as road races on a regular basis and to involve communities and schools and universities to contribute to the development of athletics at the grassroots level.
Two for chairmanship
Meanwhile, two candidates have emerged as contenders for the post of chairmanship - Abdullah Al Harthy, a former chairman of Al Ittifaq Club, and Younis Al Siyabi, the chairman of the Samail Club who is also a member of Majlis A'shura.
The current chairman Saif Al Hosni, according to sources, is unlikely to seek another term while his predecessor Hamad Al Jabri is said to be considering his options.
Rashid, while refusing to reveal with whom his team will be associated with, said: "For us it doesn't matter who becomes the chairman. All we want to do is to work for the betterment of Oman athletics."
