God willing, Qatar’s national athletics team delegation will depart next Wednesday, 24 August, to take part in the World Athletics Championships to be held in the South Korean city of Daegu from 27 August to 4 September. The delegation consists of Mr Khalifa Yousef Abdulmalik, the federation’s executive director, as head of delegation, Mr Mohammed Taher as delegation administrator, and coaches Jama Aden, Yanko Bratanov, Stanislav Slav and Yoakim Krokh, with Dr Mark Brooke as delegation doctor and Christophers as team masseur. The athletes are:
** Mutaz Essa Barshim competes in the high jump; his best mark is 2.35m and he is the gold
medallist at the 2010 World Youth Championships in Canada. He is expected to have a bright future in this event.
** Femi Ogunode competes in the 200m; his best time is 20.30 seconds, and he is the gold medallist at the Asian Games in Guangzhou in the 200m and 400m.
** Hamza Driouch, a junior athlete born in 1994, will compete in the 1500m; his best time is 3:35.73 minutes, achieved in Stockholm on 29 July 2011, and he is the silver medallist at the 2010 Youth Olympic Games held in Singapore. He also set the best world youth mark in the 1000m in Sollentuna with a time of 2:17.44 minutes on 9 August 2011, the best youth time in the world this season.
** Abubaker Ali Kamal will compete in the 3000m steeplechase; he is the gold medallist at the 2011 Asian Championships in Kobe, Japan, with a time of 8:30.28 minutes, while his personal best was set in Yalova on 16 June 2008 with a time of 8:15.80 minutes.
