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aspire rookie awards

ASPIRE Academy for Sports Excellence announced the winners of its Rookie Awards at the 3rd FIG Gymnastics World Cup which ended on March 24th, at the ASPIRE Dome in Doha.

ASPIRE itself had good reason to pat itself on the back at the awards as the Best Male category was won by a former student of the Aspire Academy.

The awards are given for the best performance by a young male (under 20) and by a young female (under 18) gymnast at the three day event.

Altogether a total of 67 gymnasts from 24 countries took part in the competition, with disciplines ranging from Vault, Beam and Rings to Pommel Horse, Bars and Floor Exercise.

There were a number of impressive displays which earned high marks from the judges and warm applause from the spectators. However, there could be only one winner for each award and the successful competitors were as follows:

Nasser AL-Hamad of Qatar (Best young male gymnast) aged 20.

Huang Qiushuang of China (Best young female gymnast) aged only 15.

The ASPIRE Rookie Award was presented at the end of the last event of the competition by ASPIRE Director of Sports, Wayde Clews and Dr. Leonieke Richardson, Head of ASPIRE ACTIVE (Acting).

Nasser qualified for the final of the Men’s Vault and he finished a very creditable fourth. This was an improvement on the seventh place he gained in last year’s final of the same competition.

Nasser, who graduated from ASPIRE last year and is now a student at Qatar University, tried out two new techniques in his allotted two vaults, finishing with a combined mark of 15.6000. At one stage he was in the silver medal position but the final two vaulters (from Latvia and Japan) bettered his mark and deprived him of a place on the podium.

Commenting on ASPIRE’s Rookie Awards, Wayde Clews Director of Sports at ASPIRE said:

“The Rookie Award scheme is the perfect example of how ASPIRE strives to engage and motivate young sports people to achieve higher goals. The award acknowledges sporting excellence and recognizes the efforts of the individual – the recipient of the award will not only have achieved something great during the event but will provide a source of inspiration for future athletes.”

During the event another ASPIRE graduate, Mahmoud AL-Saadi, narrowly missed out on qualifying for the final of the Rings discipline.

Among the international competitors, there were gold medals for Ali Al-Asi (Jordan) in the Men’s Rings, Jennifer Khweal (South Africa) in the Women’s Vault, and Krisztian Berki (Hungary) in the Men’s Pommel Horse.