Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 16, 2022: Iraq national coach Ahmed Fouad Sahib Al-Sattar has no hesitation in awarding the OCA diving youth camp a perfect 10.
Speaking on the second afternoon of the seven-day youth camp on Tuesday, the 45-year-old Iraqi trainer was asked his opinion of the dryland drills in the diving-specific gymnasium of the National Aquatic Centre at Bukit Jalil.
“As a coach I am very happy,” he said. “The OCA has provided us with a very good, experienced coach and an excellent gymnasium and diving pool. For me this is perfect.”
The athletes and coaches are being instructed by Australian Shannon Roy, a Commonwealth Games gold medallist in Kuala Lumpur in 1998 and the current national coach of Thailand.
On Tuesday afternoon, Roy assembled the athletes and coaches in the dryland gym to show a series of dynamic warm-up exercises focusing on movement and stretching before displaying to the coaches a sequence of progressive drills, supported by illustrations for the coaches to follow during a demonstration of each exercise.
“I went to China with six members of the Iraq national team for one month in both 2015 and 2016 and this programme in China was very good,” he added.
“What we are learning here is different to China so it is giving us more experience. I am very happy. It’s really interesting for myself and our athlete,” he said, referring to 12-year-old Ahmed Ali Khaleel Al-Zinkee.
“One week after this camp we will go to Egypt for an Arab diving championship. Iraq won one bronze medal at the Islamic Solidarity Games in Baku, Azerbaijan in 2017 (in men’s synchronized 10m platform) and we hope we can do well again in Egypt.”
Coach Ahmed said the dryland gym at the National Aquatic Centre, which is packed with springboards, trampolines, mats and other equipment, was giving added value to the OCA course in Malaysia.
“In Iraq we have diving pools with the standard heights for springboard and platform but we have nothing like this dryland gym. We just have a normal gymnasium which is quite small,” he said.
Iraq’s lone athlete here, 12-year-old Ahmed, began diving at the age of seven after watching diving at his local pool and taking an instant like to it.
When asked his diving dream, a confident Ahmed replied: “Super hero.”
