JEDDAH, 28 July 2006 — According to the former US professional swimmer Ali Asadullah, health experts have always considered swimming to be a “perfect” sporting activity.
Asadullah, formerly known as Jason Dicks, works for the Saudi Arabian Swimming Federation (SASF) and says that swimming provides people with a full-body workout allowing every muscle in the body to be exercised and so swimming is something Saudi youths should be regularly doing. Asadullah believes that with an increasing child-obesity problem in the Kingdom “swimming can be used as a preventative medicine” to stop diseases that stem from obesity.
SASF President Prince Abdulaziz ibn Fahad ibn Abdullah Al-Saud says that if you teach a child to swim then you are ultimately teaching someone how to save his or her life. He added that swimming is one of three sporting activities that the Prophet Muhammad (Peace and Blessings be Upon Him) encouraged Muslims to take part in.
For these reasons, the SASF has started an annual Summer Swim School across the Kingdom that is growing in popularity each year. This year SASF Program Manager Muhammad Al-Sweidan and SASF General Secretary Ali Al-Zayed launched a massive awareness campaign about the program by arranging for flyers and brochures to be distributed at schools before the end of the school year.
The SASF run their swimming program for three months during the summer with an underlying philosophy that children should be given the opportunity to have a fun and safe summer. Each year the SASF also organizes a small awards ceremony after the program where children are awarded prizes and given an opportunity to display their newly learned skills. Response has been overwhelming and Asadullah says there have been some young Saudis with lots of swimming talent. “There surely have been some promising youths identified this year,” he said adding that in Dammam one of the Saudi national team assistant coaches, Ahmed Al-Marhoun, is always on the lookout for new young stars and had told Asadullah that there are some promising athletes coming out of the Dammam program this year.
The SASF is particularly proud of the achievements of Ahmed Al-Kudmani. Asadullah said, “He is simply the best swimmer that our federation has ever produced. In October 2004 he set a new pan-Arab record in the 50-meter breaststroke.” Asadullah added that no other swimmer from the GCC region has ever accomplished such a feat and that Al-Kudmani is one athlete to watch out for at the December Asian Games in Doha.
Another achievement that the SASF is proud of is the water polo team’s performance at the 1st Islamic Solidarity Games in Jeddah in 2005. The water polo team had to settle for a bronze medal narrowly missing the silver. Asadullah said, “Prior to the competition no one would have expected to see them on the medal podium. But the national team’s head coach Milorad Krivocapic did an outstanding job preparing the players who fought tooth and nail against teams containing Olympians from nations such as Kazakhstan and Egypt.”
He also added that the Al-Ittihad Club has made some brilliant progress in swimming as a result of the resources allocated to the swimming program by the club. Asadullah added that their coach, Abdullah Johani, has been with the program for many years and is greatly experienced.
Asadullah says swimming has the potential to grow in strength in areas in the Eastern Province, particularly in the Qateef area. Al-Safa Club continues to be competitive and other clubs in the region have several highly competent swimmers.
“I think this is related to the overall support of the club and work of the coaches. There are many clubs in the Kingdom that have pools, but not all of them provide the same kind of support that one can find at the two clubs mentioned above,” he said. He explained that in Riyadh there are around 6 million people and there are plenty of sporting clubs, yet there is not one single competitive swimming program competing for the top division. “One would expect more from a big metropolitan area like this.”
The Saudi national swimming and water polo teams will be participating in the 18th GCC Swimming and Water Polo Championships in Kuwait to be held Aug. 29 to Sept. 4. The water polo team took the gold medal last year and “hope for a repeat performance this year.” Both junior and senior swimmers will face stiff competition from the host nation, but the SASF expects to see many of its swimmers achieve gold medals and set records in swimming. The federation is also sending a team to the 10th Asian Games in Doha, Qatar set for Dec 1 to 15.
As part of its national team training programs, the SASF also send their athletes abroad for training usually in the summer and now is preparing them for the GCC meet. This year for example the Saudi swimming athletes went to the Czech Republic for about a month and the water polo team will spend time camping and training in Serbia and Montenegro. Looking further into the future he said that the SASF would also send swimmers to the Federation Internationale de Natation (FINA) World Swimming Championships in Melbourne, Australia, in spring 2007.
