in de krant: Gulf Times

ASPIRE athlete Salman Almanai has booked his place at the World Under-18 Championships this summer with a personal best high jump of 2.02 metres during the Academy’s training camp in Germany. The talented Qatari athlete – who has also posted a sub-one minute 400 meters over the high hurdles – becomes the first of what is expected to be a number of students from the Academy to make the exacting grade over the coming weeks, ahead of the July event in Ostrava, Czech Republic. The threshold for the high jump is 2.00m.Almanai is part of ASPIRE’s international squad, a group of strong athletes born between 1990 and 1991 and thus the right age to compete at the World Under-18s. The squad travelled to Germany along with their respective coaches and an extensive support team, responsible for guiding them towards the summer’s main event and the coaching team were always confident that the high standards would be reached during the summer training and competition camps in Europe.ASPIRE’s Head Athletics Coach Ralf Iwan said: “ We have around 10 athletes who fall under this international squad, before leaving for another summer of experience enhancing travel for the students. “Realistically maybe four or five athletes will make it. All 10 of them have the ability, but four or five is a realistic number as the qualification criteria are set so high. That Salman has reached his target so early into the trip is fantastic, but not really a great surprise as he was close to the height earlier in the year. ”We confidently expect others to join him. That will obviously be a huge success for ASPIRE because Qatar hasn’t had a team at the Under-18s for a number of years now. With ASPIRE only being in its third year of operation that is a major success.”In all, 16 personal bests were recorded by the track and field stars of the future in Leverkusen, with Hassan Aman Harib, for example, running just 0.11 seconds outside the qualifying time in the 400 meters hurdles.These improved times and distances validate ASPIRE’s policy of regularly taking students on overseas training and competition camps, notably during the winter and summer vacations. Exposure to different training methods and environments and allowing the athletes to pitch themselves against the very best of their international contemporaries, helps in their rapid maturation as elite athletes.