AZF launches 'Freestyle Aquatics at Aspire' for differently-abled

​DOHA, December 9, 2017-Aspire Zone Foundation (AZF) has officially launched the"Freestyle Aquatics at Aspire", a pioneering Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmeme that benefits people with disabilities, at the indoor swimming pool in Aspire Dome, the largest multipurpose dome of its kind in the world. The"Freestyle Aquatics at Aspire" programmeme offers aquatics training for people with disabilities of all ages comprised of swimming, scuba diving and snorkelling lessons. The programmeme was founded by two volunteer coaches, Kathleen Bates and Jojo Musa, from non-profit organisation, Freestyle Aquatics, and is sponsored by Sasol's Accessible Qatar an award-winning initiative focused on raising awareness and improving the accessibility of venues across Qatar, and D-Adapt. D-Adapt, a participating partner in this programmeme, is a trademark of Al Diyar Agency that understands the needs of people with limited mobility and adapt solutions to improve their lives in terms of accessibility.Together with AZF, they hope to help people with disabilities lead healthier lifestyles, overcome stereotypes, have active roles in their communities, and be respected as equal members of the society.In his welcoming remarks, Mohammed Mubarak al Kuwari, Chief Marketing Officer at AZF, said:"Sports has the ability to unite us all, regardless of age or physical ability. At Aspire Zone, we believe that everyone should have access to the power of sports, and to our world-class facilities. We launched the Disability Challengers programmeME to ensure that people with disabilities are able to reach their highest sporting potential."He added,"We want Disability Challengers to get involved in AZF sporting activities throughout the year, and we are collaborating with organisations such as the Qatar Paralympic Committee and Freestyle Aquatics to make that happen. Today, we are proud to add Sasol's Accessible Qatar initiative and D-Adaptto our growing list of partners." Commenting on their support to the programmeme, Maurice Radebe, Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Sasol said:"At Sasol, we believe that accessibility is essential to building an inclusive society, and recognise that sport is an area where accessibility can have the greatest impact on the physical and mental health of people with disabilities. We are delighted to join hands with Aspire Zone, Freestyle Aquatics, and D-Adapt to make this programmeme possible." He added:"The Accessible Qatar initiative is part of our commitments to make Qatar an international leader when it comes to accessibility, in line with Qatar National Vision 2030."Freestyle Aquatics co-founder, coach Jojo Musa,added:"We wanted to provide aquatics lessons to people with disabilities to help them challenge themselves and achieve great results. Swimming can help develop and improve their self-esteem and confidence, helps them overcome their physical disabilities, and showsthem and others that anyone can accomplish anything once they set their mind to it." During the opening ceremony, AZF and its partners Sasol and D-Adapt uncovered a wheelchair lift that will help people with disabilities access the pool areas in an easy and safe fashion. Meanwhile, Abdulrahman al Yafi, a participant at Freestyle Aquatics at Aspire for more than two months, said:"I'm glad to be part of the official launch of the programmeme, which has benefited me a lot. The personal trainers tendto the participants throughout the training session, and I believe that people with disabilities would benefit greatly from the programmeme."This programmeme is part of AZF's CSR initiatives, and it builds on AZF's existing efforts to help provide people with disabilities with as many opportunities to practice their favourite sports throughout the year.

Draw held for World 9-ball Championship

DOHA, December 09, 2017-The draw of the 2017 WPA World 9-ball Championship was held at holiday villa hotel in Doha on Friday. The event will begin today at the Al Arabi Sports Club in Doha, Qatar.This will be the eighth straight year that the Gulf country, through the Qatar Billiards and Snooker Federation (QBSF), has put its full backing behind pool's biggest and most important event. As many as 128 players from over 40 countries will clash to see who will be crowned the king of 9-ball pool.This is third world championship in cue sports that the venue will be hosting after the IBSF World Billiards Championship and IBSF World Snooker Championship last month.The Group stages will run from December 9-11, wherein the players will be divided into 16 groups of 8 playing a race-to-9, alternate break, double elimination format. Four players from each group will make up the final 64, the dramatic single elimination phase of the tournament. Matches will then become a race to 11, alternate break, before a race-to-13 final, which takes place on December 14.Earl Strickland is the only three-time winner of the competition, having won in 1990, 1991 and 2002, while two-time winners include Johnny Archer (1992, 1997), Taiwan's Fong Pang Chao (1993, 2000) and Thorsten Hohmann (2003, 2013).Last year, Austria's Albin Ouschan added his name to the illustrious list of champions with a 13-6 drubbing of American Shane Van Boening. It was the second straight year that the talented American star had lost in the finals. In 2015, Van Boening lost out to Taiwan's Ko Pin Yi.

Sayyari, Al Sulaiti impress as Qatar Fencing GP begins

DOHA, December 9, 2017-Local fencers Abdullah Sayyari and Ali Al Sulaiti displayed impressive performance as prestigious Qatar Fencing Grand Prix got under way with the men's preliminary rounds at Aspire Dome yesterday. A total of eight Qataris were seen in action alongside fencers from around the world on the opening day of the three-day event which is featuring several Olympic and world champions.Sayyari and Al Sulaiti impressed in their preliminary round campaigns by notching up a win each. The two fencers though couldn't advanced to the next stage of the event, they can take heart from their wins considering the tough competitions they faced against experienced fencers. Mohammed Ali Mirzaei, Yousef Al Bader, Khalid Al Mulla, Abdulrahman Al Sowaidi, Soud Al Malki and Mehdi Feriani were the other Qatari fencers who gained valuable experience on the inaugural day. Over 350 fencers from as many as 45 countries are taking part in this year's edition of Qatar Fencing Grand Prix. The event, which is being held since 2004, is rated as one of the major tournaments in the International Fencing Federation calendar and is counted as among the toughest competitions for fencers.South Korean star Park Sang-young, an individual gold medalist at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games is also competing in Doha and will start as favourite to win the epee title. He was exempted from the preliminaries along with 17 other top-ranked fencers. Women's competition, which will begin today with preliminary rounds, will see Tunisian star Sarra Besbes defending her title which she won in the previous edition in Doha. Qatar's Fatima Hammad, Al Abdulla Thkrayat, Al Abdulla Wadha and Ghada Haroun Hassan will also be seen in action in preliminary rounds today. The finals of both men's and women's events will be held tomorrow from 5pm to 7pm. The event is offering a total prize money of US$ 30,000.

Muzammil Hussain shines in World 9-Ball Championship

DOHA, December 10, 2017-On a day when former champions Mika Immonen, Thorsten Hohmann and Alex Pagulayan suffered defeats, Austria's Albin Ouschan opened his title defence with a victory in the World 9-Ball Championship at Al Arabi Sports Club here yesterday.Qatar's Muzammil Hussain, who made it to the main draw through qualifying, registered a 9-7 win over South Korea's Junho Lee in the first session yesterday.Hussain, after having made through three gruelling rounds of qualifying, rallied back from a 1-3 deficit against Lee.The 41-year-old then swept four straight frames for a 6-4 lead, before going 8-5 up. Lee, however, still had fight left, winning two straight frames to bring it threateningly close at 7-8, but Hussain closed it out in the next.“I qualified from stage 1 and that's a lot of hard work with three sessions, and then qualifying from the last chance, the decider. I did really well," Hussain told Gulf Times yesterday.“So today it set me up well for the match against him. He is a good player and I am very happy to have won against him. I hope to do well in the next round, taking one match at a time."The grind of coming through qualifying has not dented Hussain's energy, who said, “I am trying to win more. It's a lot pressure to come through the qualifying but I am pushing myself hard, putting in hours of practice. I will do my best in the coming rounds."Hussain next faces Philippine world number nine Jeffrey Du Luna, who made short work of Algeria's Mohamed El Raousti yesterday with a 9-1 win.Later yesterday, Ouschan was up against Qatar's Abdulatif Alfawal, who stayed neck and neck with the defending champion early on at 2-2 before the 27-year-old from Austria slowly pulled away.In the 13th frame, Ouschan miscued a straightforward three-ball and Alfawal, who along with Waleed Majid won the Arab Billiards Championship in Beirut, Lebanon, recently, wrapped up the frame to take the score to 5-8.However, the world number three didn't leave it for long, wrapping up the win in the next frame, to set up a match with Hsieh Chia Chen of Taipei today.“It was a tough match. I didn't play that good. The only thing I did really well was my defensive game. I played good in the end; miscued on almost the last rack. Overall I played good but I can play much, much better," Ouschan told Gulf Times yesterday.Talking about his opponent, Ouschan said, “He breaks a little bit too soft. If he breaks like five percent harder, he will get much more precision on the one ball. That's maybe one thing. But overall he played more than okay."Alfawal too rued his performance on the break. “I played with a top player in the world. That gives me confidence. But I had a problem with my break; did not get the one ball. I did well in the rest of the game, and while I practiced a lot on the break ahead of the tournament, the breaks just didn't work," the 36-year-old said.“I had to use safety quite often. But I think if my break works like it does during practice, the score will be much better."Alfawal's teammate from the Arab Billiards Championship, Majid, lost 1-9 to Germany's Sebastian Ludwig.Another Qatar player in the line-up, Bashar Abdulmajeed was narrowly edged out in a thriller by Iraq's Abdulkhizar Hasanin 8-9.Abdulmajeed will now face 2013 champion Hohmann of Germany, who lost to Lithuanian 20-year-old Pijus Labutis 3-9 yesterday.In a clash between former champions, 2011 champion Yukio Akagariyama of Japan won a thriller over 2004 champion Pagulayan of Canada. Akagariyama won 9-8.In the first session of the day, 2001 champion Immonen lost out against Kwang Chan Keng of Singapore in a see-saw of a match.The 37-year-old Singaporean went 4-0 up before the 44-year-old Finn went level with four straight frames. Kwang took the next four games for a healthy 8-4 lead, before Immonen pulled back two. However, it was too little too late, and Kwang took the next frame to reach the next round, while Immonen moved to the losers' bracket.

World 9-Ball C’ship begins tomorrow

​DOHA, December 8, 2017-The professional pool year will close out in style for 2017 as the WPA World 9-ball Championship kicks off tomorrow at the Al Arabi Sports Club in Doha, Qatar.This will be the eighth straight year that the Gulf country, through the Qatar Billiards and Snooker Federation (QBSF), has put its full backing behind pool's biggest and most important event. As many as 128 players from over 40 countries will clash to see who will be crowned the king of 9-ball pool.This is third world championship in cue sports that the venue will be hosting after the IBSF World Billiards Championship and IBSF World Snooker Championship last month.The Group stages will run from December 9-11, wherein the players will be divided into 16 groups of 8 playing a race-to-9, alternate break, double elimination format. Four players from each group will make up the final 64, the dramatic single elimination phase of the tournament. Matches will then become a race to 11, alternate break, before a race-to-13 final, which takes place on December 14.Earl Strickland is the only three-time winner of the competition, having won in 1990, 1991 and 2002, while two-time winners include Johnny Archer (1992, 1997), Taiwan's Fong Pang Chao (1993, 2000) and Thorsten Hohmann (2003, 2013).Last year, Austria's Albin Ouschan added his name to the illustrious list of champions with a 13-6 drubbing of American Shane Van Boening. It was the second straight year that the talented American star had lost in the finals. In 2015, Van Boening lost out to Taiwan's Ko Pin Yi.

Qatar Fencing GP gets underway

​DOHA, December 08, 2017-The 2017 edition of Qatar Fencing Grand Prix will begin at Aspire Academy on Friday. The three-day event is organized by the Qatar Weightlifting and Fencing Federation until next Sunday. The Tournament will feature the participation of 350 players from 45 countries. Mr. Abdullah Al Maadheed, Director of Qatar Fencing Grand Prix stressed that all arrangements been made for the tournament and said" This edition will bring together a huge number of world champions and Olympic champions as it is considered one of the biggest grand prix events being organized under the umbrella of International Fencing Federation" He also stressed that the competitions will be broadcasted in 150 countries, by Eurosport Channel. For his part, the Tournament Supervisor Mr. Fahad Al Mulla said that the Qatari national team will be represented by 14 players, including 10 players in Men's event and 4 players in Women's event"In the 2016 edition of Qatar Grand Prix, Tunisia's Sarra Besbes claimed the title of Women's Event while Youngjun Kweon of Korea hoisted the trophy of Men's Event. Eight-time African champion Besbes beat Russia's Violetta Kolobova 15-8 in the gold medal match for her first Grand Prix title.Kweon secured his first career title by defeating France's Alexandre Bardenet 15-13 in the final match.