Olympics or no Olympics, Qatar looks to lasting legacy

(AP)
Updated: 2006-11-29 09:31One glance at the Doha skyline, dominated by building cranes and gleaming new skyscrapers, and you are left in no doubt that this oil-rich Middle Eastern nation has big plans for its future.

Maybe even an Olympics.

Olympics or no Olympics, Qatar looks to lasting legacy

A general view shows the Tower of Asian Games Flame of the 15th Asian Games Doha 2006 under the sunglow of morning November 26, 2006. The Doha Asian Games will kick off December 1st and last two weeks. [Xinhua]

Modern Doha is virtually unrecognizable to the British administrative outpost that became the Qatar capital in the 19th century, when the country was home primarily to Bedouin tribes and coastal fishermen.

That was before oil was discovered.

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In the past few years, Qatar has hungrily attracted a host of major sporting events, including the US$2 million (euro1.53 million) Doha Masters golf tournament, the tennis ATP Doha Open, the Superbike World Championship and a round of the IAAF World Athletics Tour.

The Asian Games,featuring more than 10,500 athletes and officials from 45 nations competing in 39 sports,is easily Doha's biggest undertaking so far, but sports officials in Qatar consider it just the beginning.

The Qatar Olympic Committee has already revealed plans to bid for the 2016 Olympic Games when the IOC opens the applications process next year.

Qatar will be up against stiff competition for the 2016 Summer Games, including Tokyo, Madrid, New Delhi, Prague, Rio de Janeiro and Rome. The United States may also field a candidate, most likely Chicago or Los Angeles after San Francisco abandoned its bid earlier this month.

Qatar, with a population of less than 800,000 people made up mostly of expatriate foreign workers, seems a slim chance when lined up against its larger rival bidders. But what it lacks in size, it makes up for in resources.

Qatar spent US$2.8 billion (euro2.14 billion) on preparing venues for the Asian games, including a major upgrade to the 50,000-seat Khalifa Stadium and the construction of the ASPIRE indoor sports complex, the world's largest indoor multi-sports dome.

"When we started planning, we knew we had to organize the games to a very high standard," Doha Organizing Committee deputy director general Ahmed Abdulla Al Khulaifi told The Associated Press. "We had to do it to an Olympic standard.

"We know there are a lot of challenges, but we also know we can very easily accept those challenges and we can fulfill them," Al Khulaifi said.