Four sporting events in Dubai merit five-star rating

Four major Dubai sporting events have been included as five-star events in the emirate’s latest ranking system.

They are the DP World Tour Championship, the Dubai World Cup, the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon and the Dubai Tour.

Dubai Sports Council’s sports events ranking system for the 2016-2017 events were approved yesterday by Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, who is chairman of the council.

“The sports sector is an integral part of our society and economy, and we are always striving to achieve excellence and innovation in this sector, in accordance with the vision of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai,” Sheikh Hamdan said.

“We will continue to evaluate the work in this sector, recognise outstanding people, enhance co-operation between public and private sectors, and motivate them to perform their national duty in general and athletes in particular.”

The ranking system was launched in 2014. In the first edition, there were four events in the five-star category, 29 received a four-star rating, and 53 were ranked as three-star.

In this year’s lists, events in the four-star category have risen to 133, while those events in the three-star ranking have fallen to 21.

The council said improvements at the organisational level of sporting events have resulted in spectator numbers rising from 1.26 million in 2014-2015 to 1.98 million for the third edition.

The number of participants rose from 370,000 in the first year to 465,000 in 2016-2017.