Qatar Foundation holds ‘Ladies Night’ at Education City Stadium

Doha, Qatar: Qatar Foundation held second edition of Ladies Night at the Education City Stadium yesterday, giving women an opportunity to engage in...

Doha, Qatar: Qatar Foundation held second edition of ‘Ladies Night’ at the Education City Stadium yesterday, giving women an opportunity to engage in sports and fitness activities at the 2022 World Cup venue.

The walk-in event, open to all women, offered a variety of sports including zumba, meditation, fencing, football, basketball with NBA, and fitness sessions, among other activities. The event drew around 8,000 women and girls last year. The events will also be taking place on August 7, and September 4.

Talking to The Peninsula ahead of the event yesterday, former Scottish middle- and long-distance Olympian runner Liz McColgan, who is now athletic director for sporting academies at QF, said: “The idea behind Ladies Night at Education City is to give the ladies a safe environment to come and try sports. It’s a great utilisation of a great space. It’s just really to encourage ladies and girls to come in and try the different sports. We’ve got great coaches here to actually give [the participants] guidance. We’ve got fencing, we’ve got football, table tennis. There’s actually a football tournament that’s going to be going on as well, and basketball. So it’s just creating a good sporting environment and a good sporting ethos for women in Qatar.

Asked about the response by the community to the this and other such initiatives by QF, she said: “The past events are showing that there is a big need for it. A lot of the ladies are attending and enjoying it. We did our first ladies only race about two months ago and there was like 600.” She expected the event to draw 400-500 women and girls. “A lot of the Qatari ladies want to exercise and they love exercise. It’s about QF giving them the opportunity to have the right space to do that and tonight really shows how you can work a space like this and work it well to give different opportunities to different sporting clubs,” said the former 10,000m world champion.

Liz McColgan said the Education City Stadium is going to be revamped into an elite sport venue for women, the first of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa region. “We have identified five Olympic sports that will be based here and we are starting programmes right this moment in our schools.”