JEDDAH, 11 December 2007 — They did their share in claiming laurels for Saudi Arabia in the recent 11th Pan Arab Games in Egypt. Too bad the participation of athletes with special needs was treated as no more than a side event, meaning the medals they won did not count in the overall tally of each country they represented.
The three special needs teams from Saudi Arabia brought home eight medals. A silver and a bronze came from table tennis, athletics added two golds and two silvers and weightlifting returned one silver and one bronze medal.
Despite of the many achievements of the special needs athletes they seemed to lag behind in the attention and training they richly deserve compared with the normal athletes.
The weightlifters, for instance, missed the African Open Championship that began three days ago in Egypt because of the failure to have the administrative work done to facilitate their travel. The Malaysia Open Championship, a Beijing Olympics qualifying tournament, was also missed but that’s understandable because this event had clashed with the Egypt games.
“We really hope there would be another open qualifying championship so that we could participate to honor our country,” said weightlifter Hussain Al-Nuwaisser.
Commenting on the teams’ participation in the Arab Games, Nassir Al-Saleh, secretary-general of the Saudi Federation for Special Needs, said despite being mentally challenged these “athletes gave it their best shot and continued to make their country proud flying the Saudi flag alongside those of the other Arab countries.”
Nassir Al-Hassan in category 8 landed the silver medal, while his table tennis teammate Mohammed Al-Shammari clinched the bronze in category 7.
The weightlifting team won one silver medal courtesy of Bassam Al-Houl, who lifted 100kg, in addition to the bronze by Hussain Al-Nuwaisser, who lifted 195kg.
Besides winning the gold medals in the 400 meters and javelin throw through Ali Al-Beshi the athletics team had a silver medal finish in the 200 meters courtesy of Fahd Al-Junaidel and 100 meters compliments of Saeed Al-Khalidi.
It didn’t really matter results of their competitions were not included in the tally. The beef of these athletes is that they are giving their best yet they are not getting the professional support needed to help them progress.
Al-Nuwaisser, a national team veteran for 15 years, however, was quick to point out that the support from Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah and Prince Sultan ibn Fahd, president of Saudi Youth Welfare and his deputy Prince Nawaf ibn Faisal, as well as Nasser Al-Saleh was unbelievable.
“But we need to be more prepared,” said Al-Nuwaisser adding they barely had the benefit of training camps abroad. He urged Prince Sultan and Prince Nawaf to have the officials provide them with the right training programs throughout the year.
“After placing second in the World Cup the only thing I heard from them was that I was supposed to do better! How could this be encouraging especially when they do not set any plans for training camps or even ask us if we train or not,” he said.
“I was able to lift up to 200 kg a year before the World Cup, and without training at all, I placed second after lifting 197.5 kg which means with few training I was able to become champion of the world but I lost it because of this,” he said.
Khalid Al-Mubarak, a 14-year veteran special needs athlete, and the rest of the team members shared the sentiments of Al-Nuwaisser about the seeming indifference of officials to their plight.
National team national Coach Fahad Al-Debeish said among the achievements of these special athletes were: GCC champions from 1997 to 2006, and champions in the Asian championship in Malaysia in 2002, 3rd in the Arab level, and sixth in the last Olympics. Of course, Hussain Al-Nuwaisser managed to place second in the 2006 World Cup in Korea and Ibrahim Ibrahim finished second in the European Open Championship.
“They have the will to achieve something and we are looking to win the top places in any event we participate in,” said the coach.
“We trained them for 42 days before the Arab Games, and it is not the perfect period of time but we hope it was enough to make their dreams come true,” said the coach.
According to the team official, four standouts of the weightlifting team, Al-Nuwaisser, Mohammed Al-Qahtani, Bassam Al-Houl and Ibrahim Mustapha, are capable of qualifying and have big potentials to win an Olympic medal.
“We really hope we could be there not only to participate but also to compete and bring back home something to be proud of just like what our football team with special needs did last year when they emerged champions in Germany,” said Al-Nuwaisser.
