Nine members of Oman Sail’s youth sailing team will represent the nation at the 1st Youth GCC Games, being held in the United Arab Emirates from 16 April until 2 May. Oman’s sailors will compete in three event classes, Optimist, ILCA 4 and ILCA 6, which will be held at the Abu Dhabi Marine Sports Club starting on 16 April.
Travelling to compete will be Tamim Al Balushi, Hood Al Nofli, Khamis Al Mashaikhi, Tarteel Al Hasani and Mohammed Al Qasmi in the Optimist, with support from coaches Suhail Al Maiyahi and Hajir Al Amrani, the ILCA teams of Abdul Al Qasmi and Firas Al Hasmi in the ILCA 4 and Hatem Al Araimi and Elyas Al Fadali in the ILCA 6, who will be aided by coach Mundher Al Kindi. Oman Sail is also very proud to provide Saleh Al Jabri to the sailing jury for the entire competition.
Abdul Aziz Al Shidi, Oman Sail’s Sailing Development Manager and Team Lead for the GCC Youth Games, said, “We are very proud to be a part of such an exciting and enriching event for our young sailors and youth across the region. Sport has always had the power to bring people together and we hope that our teams across all sports perform to the best of their abilities. We have trained hard throughout the season to be ready for major events such as this and are confident that the team is ready to represent the country on and off the water in Abu Dhabi.”
The sailing team joins a national delegation of over 200 individuals across 14 sports to represent Oman across a variety of disciplines including football, golf, taekwondo, athletics, handball, volleyball, basketball, fencing and table tennis as part of a total field of 3500 athletes representing the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Kuwait, as well as Oman, across 25 individual and team sports.
The first GCC Youth Games is organised by the National Olympic Committee of the UAE and the UAE Sailing and Rowing Federation under the theme of ‘Our Gulf is One… Our youth is promising’.
