(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Qatari wrestlers Abdulqader Omar, Jaafar Khan, Husain Raisi, Bakhit Sherif and Abdulrahman Ibrahim will join the region's best freestyle and Greco-Roman athletes in an attempt to scoop medals at the 2015 Senior Asian Wrestling Championship starting today.
The much-awaited sports event, set to be held at Aspire Academy, will end on May 10, officials said yesterday.
Participation at the Doha championships qualifies nations for the 2015 World Championships to be held in Las Vegas. The event in Las Vegas will be the first qualifier for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, details have revealed.
Three-time Olympic champion and nine-time world champion Kaori Icho of Japan will be eyeing the 58kg title in Doha this week.
Other top names in the women's class include two-time world champion Tatyana Amanzhol of Kazakhstan (48kg), 2012 champion Kanako Murata of Japan (63kg) and compatriot 2013 champion Hiroe Suzuki (75kg).
Iran's Masmoud Esmaeilpour (61kg) and Komeil Ghasemi (125kg) will be looking to defend their Asian crowns captured last year in Astana.
Preparations for the region's biggest wrestling event are complete with organizers claiming more than 600 participants will feature at the Doha event.
Qatar is hosting the event for the first time with most names emerging from Asian countries.
The championship is sponsored by the Qatar Olympic Committee.
The organizing committee - headed by Qatar Wrestling Federation (QWF) President Zamel Sayyaf Al Shahrani - includes Hamad Al Hajri, Mubarak Jabr, Ahmed Ibrahim, and Dr Abdul Hafeez Marzouk.
The QWF President confirmed a series of meetings on the sidelines of the five-day event.
Officials representing Arab Wrestling Federation will also be present during those meetings, he said.
Wrestlers for the May 6 to 10 event have flown in from China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Iran, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, Hong Kong, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Iraq, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Macau, Myanmar, and the Philippines besides wrestlers from the host country.
Al Shahrani said the Asian Championship has attracted fierce competition as none of the top names would consider missing the Doha meet unless there is an injured wrestler.
"We will have world and Olympic champions competing here," Al Shahrani said.
"Champions in Iran, Turkey, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan will be here and we are excited about that," he said.
Al Shahrani said that this tournament is being held for the first time in the Gulf region.
"We hope the presence of more wrestlers from the Arab countries would be good for the athletes from the region," he said.
"They will gain in experience when they compete against the best and get to improve their wrestling skills," he said.
Al Shahrani said only Iraq has confirmed their participating at the six-day event.
"We expect wrestlers from Jordan, Syria, Palestine and the UAE to feature at our event," he said.
Al Shahrani said Qatari wrestlers, who underwent training in Belarus for the Asian Championship, have returned home confident of producing improved performances. Team Director Sultan Al Jamali said: "We are satisfied with what we have achieved from the training camp. We had a good time, getting the wrestlers prepared the way they wanted to prepare."
He added: "The preparations went well. The training camp was like an international event."
A QWF official yesterday said Doha's preparations for the six-day championship were 'complete'.
"We are expecting wrestlers and officials from more than 27 countries. As far as preparations go, we are ready, I would say," an official said. "We've had several meetings the past two weeks. We look into each matter with absolute concern and deal with it accordingly."
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