Aspire Academy conducted the final stage of the year-long assessment process from which new young talent join the world-renowned institution of youth sports development- are selected.

Known as Gold Camp and falling under the Talent Identification Programme, the assessment saw 40 young Qatar residents eager to join Academy undergo a range of set exercises, drills and challenges design to give coaches and staff a holistic picture of each athlete.

The Gold Camp represents the third step of Aspire Academys comprehensive talent scouting system which starts with over 4000 year 6 Qatari boys from all across the country seen and assessed by the team from Aspire Academy Talent Identification department during visits to government and Independent schools in the Bronze Camp before the numbers are significantly whittled down in the second stage known as Silver Camp Testing.

Aspire Academy Sprint and hurdles coach Ross Jeffs explained some of the new things included in this years camp:

"On day one we started with some coaching activities which gave us a chance to see what the boys are like in a coaching environment, their coach-ability and how they interact with each other and react to coaching cues. In day 2 we introduced competition environment for the first time in Gold Camp and had the boys compete in throws, 60m sprint, long jump, and endurance. This will enable us to

compare them with our current Development 1 and 2 student- athletes and see how they fare and collecting such details and information is part of the progress necessary to coaching and development," he said.

For his part, Aspire Academy senior multi-events coach Adel Mouelhi was keen to emphasize how in a difficult year with the pandemic, the Talent Identification Programme did remarkably well to

bring the best 40 boys to Gold Camp and each boys who reached this stage would for the first time be kept in the system and monitored over the years.

(QNA)