Since 2012, we have been visiting developing countries to find talented athletes in immerging countries in Asia. We placed one important a stepping stone to boost the development of our sport in the west Asian region.
This year, we combined the camp with the Aqaba ASTC West Asian Championships to not only provide participating athletes with racing experience right after the camp, but also LOC with promoting the inaugural West Asian Championships. The camp was planned to have 3 sessions per day consisting of two training sessions and one classroom session. The perfect combination of both training and classroom sessions help participating coaches and athletes learn faster from facilitating coach, Vicent Beltran from Spain.
The 7 days camp has been full of happy smiles among participating 12 athletes and coaches from 3 countries under the guidance of Vicent. The cheerful mood created good conditions for young and new athletes to ask many questions during camp, and understand our sport well. A meeting session with Lawrence Faunus, Olympian from this region, help athletes and coaches realize the value of hard and consistent training in our sport.
“We really appreciate this great opportunity for our athletes and coaches to learn a lot from Vicent through this camp. The camp provide us a good chance not only to recognize talented athletes from our country, but also to realize that we need to monitor those athletes with consistent support. And we are looking forward to having more opportunities to have this kind of camps in this region.” said Dr. Tareq Khayyat, the president of Jordan Triathlon Association.
“I am honored to conduct this camp in the Middle East. Throughout the camp I find a couple of athletes with huge potentials to be international triathletes in the future. I hope those athletes to train consistently in their challenging social and environmental conditions. I will work close with them to make sure they will be able to achieve their goal.” said Vicent Beltran, ITU expert from Spain.
“On behalf of ASTC, I’d like to expression my deep appreciation to Jordan Triathlon Federation helping us have a good camp. We found a couple of talented athletes through this camp. We will expose them to more camps and bigger events next year to support them to reach next level. Also we take a chance to share our vision with related federations and exchanged ideas on the direction of our sport development through this camp.” said Ki, Woo-kyong, ITU Asia Sport Development coordinator.
Next project in Asia : the Chiba level 2 Coaching course, Japan November 23 - 27.