Grand conclusion to Third Mini Olympics

Manama : Top officials from the Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) and the Education Ministry were praised for the third edition of the School Mini Olympics, which concluded yesterday.

It got underway on April 21 and featured over 3,000 students representing 16 government and 18 private schools in the fray.

Organised by the BOC in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, the Mini Olympics featured a record nine sports events - football, basketball, volleyball, athletics, aquathlon, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo and athletics for differently abled.

The curtain came down yesterday with a closing ceremony staged at Isa Sports City’s Bahrain Volleyball Association gym in Riffa. It was attended by Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) board member and president of the Bahrain Football Association President Shaikh Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, General Secretary Abdulrahman Askar, directors of the committee and top Education Ministry officials.

Following the national anthem, Shaikh Ali delivered a speech and stressed the importance of community partnership initiated by the Education Ministry in developing sports within various government and private schools in Bahrain.

He noted that this partnership would also contribute to discovering new young talents, who can be the future of the nation in a variety of sports.

The Education Ministry representative Dr Shaikha Al Jeeb expressed the ministry’s commitment to establishing such activities that helps in beefing up local clubs and national teams with promising athletes. She commended the event and the joint action between the two sides in the field of sports, and asserted the importance to continuing this cooperation to further bolster these programmes.

A short film was also shown highlighting some of the most significant action from the  Mini Olympics.

Representatives from the sponsoring companies, the participating schools and other contributors were then honoured by the event patron. The ceremony concluded with Shaikh Ali presenting a special commemorative shield to Dr Al Jeeb, before the Olympic torch flame was put out to announce the end of the event.