TEAM Bahrain’s historic performance at the Paris 2024 Olympics was celebrated last night in a public event at City Centre Bahrain, with the presence of the kingdom’s four superstar medallists.
Sports fans from across the kingdom of all ages and nationalities flocked to the shopping mall to meet freshly crowned Olympic champions Akhmed Tazhudinov and Winfred Yavi, silver-medallist Salwa Eid Naser, and bronze-medallist Gor Minasyan.
The event was organised by the Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) and it gave the local community a chance to take pictures and interact with the sporting heroes, who flew the nation’s flag high on the biggest sporting stage.
In attendance were BOC secretary general Faris Al Kooheji and BOC executive director and Team Bahrain’s Chef de Mission at Paris 2024 Ahmed Abdulghaffar, along with other high-ranking officials from the BOC and various national federations.
“It is very important to highlight athletes’ achievements,” Mr Al Kooheji told the GDN about yesterday’s event. “This can play a big role in promoting athlete development and even help motivate other athletes within the local community to pursue sports.”
Mr Abdulghaffar added: “This is just a small testament to the achievement these athletes have done. An Olympic medal is a lifetime achievement for any athlete. We just wanted to make sure they have the proper welcome from the Bahrain community and have that interaction with the population, especially with aspiring youth athletes.”
The four medals won by Mr Tazhudinov, Ms Yavi, Ms Naser, and Mr Minasyan helped Team Bahrain finish 33rd overall on the medal tally amongst the 204 participating nations – 206 if including the refugee team and the squad of individual neutral athletes. Bahrain were also ranked first amongst Arab nations and sixth in Asia.
The kingdom has now bagged eight medals in its 40 years of Olympics history, including four gold, three silver, and one bronze. Bahrain won its first Olympic medal, a gold, in London 2012, and then won a gold and silver in Rio 2016 and a silver in Tokyo 2021.
Mr Al Kooheji highlighted that Bahrain’s historic Paris 2024 campaign was a result of the outstanding leadership at the helm of the kingdom’s sports movement, which is led by His Majesty King Hamad’s representative for humanitarian work and youth affairs and Supreme Council for Youth and Sport (SCYS) chairman Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, and SCYS first deputy chairman, General Sports Authority chairman, and BOC president Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
“When your stakeholders and decision-makers understand sports, you can make efficient and quick decision-making,” Mr Al Kooheji explained.
“We are very fortunate that not only do His Highness Shaikh Nasser and His Highness Shaikh Khalid understand sports, but they are elite athletes themselves.
“Before Paris, we said we expected an historic performance. We did that, and we are now expecting an even bigger achievement in Los Angeles 2028.”
Mr Abdulghaffar expressed his delight in the overwhelming response Team Bahrain has received for their Paris 2024 success.
“We are very ecstatic about the performance of Team Bahrain at the Olympics,” he said. “Our technical preparation was very good, we had a good supporting team coming on. We implemented our administration team going into Paris very well, and we put the athletes in the best possible position to perform. From that perspective, the BOC is very happy of how it turned out.
“Not only did we exceed our previous medal tally, we equalled what we historically had done in the past 20 years of
the Olympics, in just one edition. Everybody is very happy.
“And to add a cherry on top, we were the first-ranked Arab nation, and in terms of total population and size of the team participating, we were in the top five or six performance-wise.”
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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