Qatar to bid for 2024 Summer Olympic Games

Qatar will bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympics despite two previous unsuccessful attempts, the Qatar Olympic Committee (QOC) general secretary said yesterday. “We have tried it twice and we will continue. It’s not something we will give up, it’s part of our vision to make Qatar a centre for sport,” Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman al-Thani told reporters at a press conference held to announce Qatar Airways as the official sponsor of the country’s Olympic team headed to the London Olympics. Qatar had proposed holding the 2020 Olympics in October to avoid the Gulf Arab state’s searing summer heat but failed to make the list of Candidate Cities in May along with the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, while Istanbul, Tokyo and Madrid made the cut. Qatar will host the 2014 world short-course swimming championships and 2015 men’s handball world championships, but failed to get the 2017 world athletics championships, and Sheikh Saoud said that the country would continue to bid for other major events.  “We are in the process of bidding for some other championships which we will announce at a later date,” he said. Qatar, the hosts of the 2022 World Cup, bid for the 2016 Olympic Games which eventually went to Rio de Janeiro, even though the bid was rated technically better than some of the other contestants. The searing summer heat in July and August, when the Games are usually held, apparently went against Qatar, following which QOC managed to secure an assurance from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that it could host the Olympics in October if Doha won the 2020 bid. Despite the understanding Qatar failed to progress to the final stage of the selection process, with the historical Turkish city of Istanbul now positioning itself as the favourite to host the Games in 2024. Meanwhile, Qatar will be sending 12 athletes to the Olympics in London next month, although Sheikh Saoud was candid enough to admit that the country’s medal chances were bleak. “We don’t expect any medals at the London Olympics which we would use as a learning experience for our future endeavours,” he said. This will be the first time Qatar will be sending female athletes to the Olympics in line with the IOC policy of “Sport for all”. Nada Mohamed Arkaji  (swimming),  Bahya Mansour al-Hamad (shooting), Ayah Majdi (table tennis) and Noor Hussain al-Malki (athletics) will form part of the 12-member Qatar team. Ayah, who won three gold medals at the GCC championships in 2010, qualified under the Tripartite Commission Invitation scheme of the IOC under which wild cards are given to countries to promote universal participation in sports. The four sportswomen will join their male counterparts, Nasser Saleh al-Attiyah and Rashid Hamad al-Athba (shooting),  Ahmed Ghithe Atari (swimming), Hamza Driouch, Mohamed al-Gami, Mohamed Abdu Bakhet, Mutaz Barshim and Musaab Abdulrahman Bala (athletics) in the Olympic squad.