Dr. Mansoor Al-Tauqi, Olympic Council of Asia Athletes’ Committee member, said 3,000 athletes were polled during the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou, China from 45 different sports to gather insight on the conditions and lifestyle of the modern-day athlete.
Initial survey results show there was a general satisfaction among athletes, yet their main concern was regarding rehabilitation and physiotherapy, and “we as IOC members listed that in our recommendations,” according to Al-Tauqi.
Thanks to the 16th Asian Games 16 volunteers, committee members and even Chinese athletes, “we managed to collect this huge number,” said Mansour.
The questionnaires, he explained, covered different aspects from the training environment to the technical and financial assistance they received from the public and private sector, to their post-competition career plans.
“It is all about how these athletes would evaluate the facilities provided to them, but it even extended to gathering information on their level of education and years of practicing sports,” said Hadi Souan, OIC Athletes’ Committee member from Saudi Arabia, and first Olympic silver medalist in the 400m hurdles in 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics.
It wasn’t obligatory, he said, but athletes were encouraged to participate and were given free USB, T-shirts and hats with the IOC logo on them.
This is the third part of the survey conducted by the Athletes’ Committee, said Mansour. The first was during the 1st Asian Beach Games in Bali, Indonesia, in 2008 and then at the 3rd Asian Indoor Games in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 2009, where they polled around 830 athletes from 20 sports.
The fourth and final survey will be conducted at the 7th Asian Winter Games in Kazakhstan early next year, and the results from all four events will be analyzed to produce a detailed report and recommendations in January 2011.
Mansour said he would likely present the findings of this survey at the 19th European Association for Sport Management Conference 2011 in Madrid, Spain.
Also, Mansour said that during the indoor games participation of women was very small, not more than 36 percent, hence the recommended that women should be more encouraged to participate in indoor games. In this games too, the percentage of women, he said, still ranges from 30 to 40, “ but we have to bear in mind that most of the Arab countries do not have a lot of women athletes yet.”
It was also a surprise that almost 42 percent of the athletes are either university students or with a bachelor’s degree. “This is contrary to the common belief that our athletes are usually not educated and that our athletes are improving their sports skills, along with their education. And this also means our Asian national Olympic committees must strengthen its relationship with the universities to sustain this level of awareness among the athletes regarding the importance of education,” he said.
Another finding was that almost 50 percent of these Asian athletes receive financial support from their sports federations and government sector, while the private sector support is only around 10 percent. These athletes in addition requested that their federation provide them with living expenses and transportation during their training camps at least for a month.
Athletes also admitted their knowledge on anti-doping is still limited and that they received only general information and would like to learn more.
RAZAN BAKER
Arab News