Youth runners excel at 4th Aspire Academy cross country races
THE 4th Aspire Academy cross country races held on Friday saw over 60 youth runners from local clubs Al Ahli, Qatar SC, Doha Athletics Club and Sherborne School join Aspire Academy student-athletes aged 12 to 18 for the competition
It was a good display of some of the fine running talent in Qatar with strong races that delighted a sizeable crowd.
Athletes lined up for the 2km Mini Cadet, 3km Cadet and 4km Youth and Junior races. Ahmed Alharbi from Qatar Sports Club clocked 6.52 min to win the boys’ Mini-Cadet race with Aspire Academy studentathlete, Ahmed Ibrahim in second place and Hassan Ibrahim of Qatar SC in third place.
In the girls’ Mini Cadet race, all three podium places went to Doha Athletics Club runners with Gabriella Franklin’s time of 8.05 min giving her gold. era Tramullas took silver while the bronze went to Amelia Wichert.
The Cadet race for girls was another All- Doha Athletics Club victory. Anna Sanchez’s time of 14.14 min beating Lily Schnurman, and Zoha Siddiqui into second and third respectively.
Ashraf Hyder of Al Ahli club won the 3km boys Cadet races with a time of 10.03 min. He was followed by the Aspire student-athlete duo of Abdulsalam Alawi and Ibrahim Abdalla. Amelia Bennet was the only female runner in the female youth section.
In the boys’ Youth race, Qatar Sports club locked the front two places with Mohamed El Alami winning gold and his club mate Moatasem Al Raei taking silver and bronze going to Othman Dani of Al Ahli club.
There was a home win when Aspire Academy student-athlete Housam Hrabi completed the 4km in 12.30 mins to win the Junior race. Suber Jama of Qatar Sports Club took silver and another Aspire Academy student-athlete Omer Elfadi claimed bronze.
Hrabi said, It was really good to come out and run after months of training without competition. I enjoyed running against a strong group of athletes and very happy to win gold
Running in the 2km MiniCadet race was Qatar National Football team head-coach Felix Sanchez’s daughter Anna.
Finishing on top of the podium, she said, I am happy to win and found the run to be a good challenge. I am happy to be running at an Aspire event which feels like home with my dad having been with Aspire Academy for many years and l have grown up around Aspire.
Meanwhile Felix Sanchez himself was at Aspire Academy Cross Country race cheering on his daughter and said, It’s wonderful to see this colourful crowd outside doing sports, something that has been difficult lately due to the pandemic. Aspire Academy does these kind of sporting events so well and it’s lovely to be able to join in at this cross country this morning.
Aspire Academy, Athletics Coach, David McCarthy expressed his satisfaction with the morning’s performance and efforts of all the participants, Athletes train for competition and look forward to applying learnt tactics in races and battle it out with other athletes. Today they got that opportunity and met that challenge and l am pleased with the way they ran in the cross -country races and we managed to get some podium places too which all bodes well for the work Aspire coaches, staff and athletes have put in training. There were some strong runners in today’s event, and they gave our boys a good contest and something to think about ahead of forthcoming National Cross-Country competition, he added.