Seventh Fencing Grand Prix and Women’s World Cup begins in Qatar
The seventh Fencing Grand Prix and Women’s Team World Cup in Epee will be commencing from the 11th to the 14th February, 2011 at the Aspire Academy of Sports Excellence in Doha, Qatar.
Both of these events are being organized by the Qatar Fencing Federation. The Women’s Team World Cup begins tomorrow and the Qatar Grand Prix starts on 12 February, 2011. The weapon discipline for the Women’s World Cup is Epee.
A total of 287 fencers, including 151 females are supposed to be participating in the events. 274 fencers from the countries of Bulgaria, China, Libya, Australia, Ukraine, Britain, Hungary, France, Sweden, Mexico, Netherlands, Russia, Qatar, Egypt, Italy,
Japan, Spain, Portugal, USA, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Venezuela, Palestine, Turkey, Tunisia, Germany, UAE and Poland have confirmed their participation in the event.
The seventh Fencing GP shall feature the World’s top fencers including the number one ranked woman Yana Shemyakina from the Ukraine and the German Joerg Fielder from the men’s division. Fielder will be defending his title this season. The players will battle
for both prestige and prize money in the events.
A press conference was held on 8th February by the organizing committee of the QFF to brief the media regarding the recent arrangements for the event. Qatar’s Competition Director, Khalid Al Yazeedi announced that Qatar will bring in their 23-member
squad to participate in the events. The QFF Technical Expert and the Head of Technical Committee, Mr. Ali Belhaj said that Qatar will be represented by 10 fencers in women and 13 fencers in men. The names that were announced in the conference are given below:
Men’s team: Ali Al Boenain, Abdullah Sayyari, Meshad Al Matawah, Ahmad Al Dosari, Mohammad Ali Mirzei, Mohammad Al Dossary, Hammad Al Dosari, Dawood Al Shukaili and Mohammad Al Shammari
Women’s team: Najiya Saleh, Noora Al Dosari, Fatima Hammad, Abraar Al Attef, Noura Al Hetmi, Fatma Al Julandani, Aisha Al Musalmani and Hanadi Al Yami
In the press conference Al Yazeedi stressed that the QFF has allocated a grand prize of total $52,000. The top prize for the men is $31,000 and $21,000 for the women.
The Media Manager of QFF, Fahad Al Mulla said that the world best fencers would be featuring in the Qatar GP and Women’s Team World Cup.
According to him, all the arrangements have been completed and the sports equipment will be inspected before the event gets started. Mulla added that ambassadors from all the participating countries were invited for the GP event.
Khalid Yazeedi informed media in the conference, “This year we’ve fencers from UAE and Tunisia in the Arab World, apart from Qatar. Previously, participants from 29 countries took part in our event. This year we have players from 36 countries.”
He further stated that the crowd has also been taken care of, as school children will be brought to the venue for promoting the sport among them. Moreover, the sports fans have also been welcomed to come and see the players in action for free.
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