?Representatives of the Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) returned from Kuwait recently after attending the Second Asian Athletes Forum.
BOC Arab and International Relations Director Fajer Jassim and Olympic Solidarity Section head Maryam Mardana represented Bahrain at this three-day forum, which was attended by around 115 athletes from all over the world.
The forum was organized by the Olympic Council of Asia’s Athletes Committee, under the leadership of Yuko Arakida – an Olympic Games gold medal-winning volleyball athlete at the 1976 Montreal Olympics – in cooperation with the, the International Olympic Committee and National Olympic and Association of National Olympic Committees.
Each National Olympic Committee sent two representatives to the forum to receive information and advice, and take the knowledge back to their own NOC to use in future activities and promotions.
The forum is aimed at increasing the number of athletes’ committees within the OCA’s 45 National Olympic Committees and building a network of communication and cooperation between the relevant parties.
The OCA President, Sheikh Ahmad Al Fahad Al Sabah, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony on Friday morning, before a series of panel discussions took place on the hot trends and topics in the athletes’ world. The First Asian Athletes’ Forum was held in Tokyo on the sidelines of the OCA General Assembly in 2011.
The International Sports Relations Foundation (iSR) signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) to work in collaboration for ‘iSR Academy’ today at the 2nd Asian Athletes Forum in Kuwait.
According to the MOA, the agreement is to establish the terms and conditions under which iSR and ANOC cooperate for a period of three years to support the study and internship of retired athletes, i.e. IOC Athletes Career Program, financial aid for students from developing countries, joint symposium/forum and research/publications.
The iSR Academy is designed to help career transition for the top sports elites and retiring athletes by offering one year of language and work training education combining the Athletes Career Program run by the IOC.
The program is expected to begin in June this year followed by the recruitment of students from developing countries all around the world from this coming March.
