Wednesday, March 20, 2013

رياضيون ترياثلون عرب

ذهبت اليوم إلى صفحة منظمة الترياثلون الدولية في الإنترنت لأرى إذا ما كان هناك أي رياضي عربي في المراكز الأولى في قائمة الترتيب العالمية. لا أعلم ما كنت أتوقعه ولكنني لم أتوقع العثور على الكثير على كل حال
أول رياضي عربي وجدته هو لورنس فانوس من الأردن وترتيبه ١٧٥. والثاني والأخير مهدي الصادق من المغرب وترتيبه ١٨٨
السؤال اللذي يطرح نفسه بالطبع هو لماذا إثنين فقط من أول مائتين من الرياضيين؟ ماللذي يجب عمله لتحسين هذا الوضع؟ لكن السؤال الآخر هو سؤال للورنس و مهدي: إذا كانت لديكما أمنية لشيء سيساعدكما للوصول إلى مراتب أعلى فما هي؟
سأفاجأ إذا أجاب أحد منهما سؤالي، ولكن من يعلم!!! على كل حال، شكرا لتمثيل العرب تمثيلا جيدا.

11 comments:

  1. There's also Omar Nour, a pro from Egypt, but he doesn't participate in a lot of ITU races. He is another great Arab triathlete. Another young Arab who is coming up the ranks is Tonsy (also from Egypt) who has some great potential.

    The one common thing between all these guys is that they're not living in an Arab country, unfortunately, or at least they didn't start in an Arab country. It is very early days for the sport in the Middle East, and there is a lack of training support, maybe except in Abu Dhabi. It is the national federations that need to get more serious about promoting the sport, improving training programmes, and creating serious races with serious prize money to attract top pros (like Abu Dhabi does).

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    1. Lawrence Fanous from Jordan is number one in all the Arab countries and ranked 9th in Asia which include Japan China Koria Malaysia etc. and is ranked 129th in the world if you look at the ITU points ranking in which is updated every week not on the world cup ranking which is different so if you log on ITU ranking then choose ITU points that is the latest ranking updated weekly . Why do you think these Arab athletes dont stay in the Arab countries because the support and the facilities are nothing compared to the rest of the world and the sponsership and support of the business dont exist i know for a fact that Lawrence Fanous requested more than 100 companies in the Arab countries to sponser him not one company even had the decency to reply for his request these men need a sponser to help them training, travelling for the races buying equipment example a decent racing bike is £4000 to £8000 , If they dont have a sponser they will struggle untill the business people in the Arab world change their attitude about the sport in general our sport will stay lagging behind the rest of the world.
      By the way Fanous came 4th in Abudabi came out the water with Brownlee the gold olympic champion and the Russian 5th in the world and stayed with them to the end then he went to Florida USA open championship came 13th of the best of American Canadian etc. he is now on his way to Sharm elshaik in Egypt for the Arab championship on the 23rd of march. If you know any company or business want to help these athletes will lift the sport to a better level.

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    2. Thanks for the comments, Anonymous, and for explaining how to read the ITU lists correctly. I know what you mean about sports sponsorship in the Arab world. I do believe that things are changing, although slowly. This is true for Triathlon as well as for sports in general. I'm impressed by the focus that Qatar has been putting on sports lately.
      Of course, I'm only an indvidual with passion for sports in general and triathlon in particular. I'm by no means a strong Business (maybe I'll make sports a business with my son who is majoring in sports management at University in Ohio). But, let me ask, what do you think support for Lawrence could look like?

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    3. Lawrence graduated from Loughborough university in the UK sport science and managment and he is level two coach qualifyed he coaches top athletes and bigginers on line all over the world he write them a training settions weekly, decided to go as a proffesional triathlete trained with the British triathlete squad all his life and he still train and live in Loughborough and travel all over the world for racing they train 6 to 8 hours a day so they cannot take a job they live on sponserships and prize money and coaching and the level of sponsership depends on the performance year to year it is a tough job when you have to train so much every day and look for financing the lifestyle and the travel etc. I hope some companies in the Arab countries support him as he is the best triathlete in the Arab world he has sponsers in the UK one supply him with a racing bikes another with the trisuits and wetsuits another with cycling and running shoes another with suppliments as he races for a French team but still needs help with travelling expencess and day to day so he can concentrate more on his training , he is a hell of a tallent .

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  2. Thanks for your comment, Hassan. You're right about Omar. I follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He finished 8th in Abu Dhabi, only 14 minutes behind Alistair Brownlee. Lawrence Fanous was 5th, 11 minutes behind Alistair. Two great triathletes.
    I agree with your observations and comments about the sport in the Middle East, but I believe it will get better soon. I'm optimistic.

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  3. For these men to be ranked top 129 in the world of the elite triathletes is very good remember to qualify for the olympic you need to be top 140 in the ITU points list http://www.triathlon.org/rankings for these men to go higher in the ranking they need support from the Arab federations and businesses to be able to travel to participate in more races in the world if you look at the ITU calander 100s of races available all over the world from China, Japan, Korea ,Australia, Canada, USA,South America ,Africa, Europe,Etc. To be able to travel to those events they need a big budget. I hope the Arab countries support the athletes properly that they can achive higher positions and attract more young athletes to the sports. I urge the Arab Businesses And companies to support these athletes.

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  4. It's great to see the enthusiasm of everybody. To start with, we need to get closer together as Arab triathletes (pros, age-groupers, and beginners) and support eachother. I hope this blog can be a good place to connect and communicate. I might be crazy (other word for visionary), but I'll start thinking about ways to raise funds like they do for all kinds of purposes in Europe and North America. Contact me directly at my email address if you have thoughts or can offer any help to get this started. In the meantime, I mentioned a couple of races I'm going to join in Germany (see the "My races" tab above). If anyone would like to join these, or other races in germany for that matter, I'll be happy to offer food and accomodation for a certain number of athletes at my place, free of charge :-)

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  5. Hi Tarek
    This is Lawrence Fanous and I am very interested to talk with you about how we can help Arab triathlon and to hear your thoughts on how we can get better.

    It is good to see an arab triathlete writing a blog! I am currently sitting in Egypt the evening before the first Arab Championships and it is great to see Arabs doing the sport. I think the answer to your question of why there are not more Arab triathletes in the top 200/100 or wherever in the ITU rankings is that there are simply not enough Arabs doing the sport. In my race here in Egypt there will be maybe 15 in my race. The sport is just not well known enough in the region as a sport.

    The Jordanian Federation in particular has minimal funding from JOC/governemnt to support us. We need more help from them and also for the Federaton to start working with companies who can help wth the various services needed by our athletes: flights, bus services, accommodation, food, drink etc. etc. I think partnerships between the bhuge companies in the Middle East and Arab Triathlon Federations is the key as I guess the government does not yet have the interest. But when we start bringing in the results that matter to the government and Olympic committees then they may start to look more towards triathlon and other sport to send funding to.

    Please contact me through my facebook page (www.facebook.com/lawrencefanous) or twitter (@fanoustri) if you would like to talk more!

    Many Thanks

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  6. Hi Lawrence,
    It's a great pleasure to read a comment from you here. I'm looking forward to getting in touch with you. For now, I want you to know that I wish you all the best for tomorrow's race and I'll be crossing my fingers for an excellent result for you and the other Arab triathletes.

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    1. Lawrence Fanous won the first Arab world Triathlon Championship for Jordan . Jordan must be very proud of him Well done Lawrence.

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    2. This is absolutely fantastic!!! Well done and congratulations!!!! We are all very proud of Lawrence, the new Lawrence of Arabia.

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