International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach says the IOC will provide support to Saudi Arabia to increase the participation of women in sport in the country. Enrique Marcarian / Reuters
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach says the IOC will provide support to Saudi Arabia to increase the participation of women in sport in the country. Enrique Marcarian / Reuters
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach says the IOC will provide support to Saudi Arabia to increase the participation of women in sport in the country. Enrique Marcarian / Reuters
International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach says the IOC will provide support to Saudi Arabia to increase the participation of women in sport in the country. Enrique Marcarian / Reuters

Sport

Thomas Bach discusses IOC assistance to help increase participation

Thomas Bach, the IOC president, has discussed the issue of women’s participation in sports with Saudi Arabia’s Olympics chief.

Associated Press

April 02, 2014

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RIYADH // Thomas Bach, the IOC president, has discussed the issue of women's participation in sports with Saudi Arabia's Olympics chief.

Bach held talks in Riyadh with Prince Nawaf Faisal Fahd bin Abdul Aziz, an IOC member and president of the national Olympic committee in the country.

The IOC said that Bach promised “full support” for the country’s sports development strategy through 2020.

The plan includes “proposals to increase women’s participation in the Olympic Games and in sport in general.”

Saudi women largely are banned from participating in sports in the kingdom, although there are several football and basketball clubs that play in clandestine leagues.

After prolonged negotiations with the IOC, Saudi Arabia sent women to the Olympics for the first time, in 2012, with two women competing at the London Games.

Saudi Arabia hopes to increase women’s participation at the 2016 Games at Rio de Janeiro by introducing better training, particularly at the university level, the IOC said.

The IOC said Bach offered to work with international sports federations to draft a programme for greater Saudi participation and help raise awareness of Olympic sports in the kingdom.

Bach’s visit to Saudi Arabia concluded a four-day trip to the region that also included stops in Kuwait and Qatar.

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Some of Darwish's last words

"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008

His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.