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Top officials from the Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) and the Education Ministry were all praise for the initiative to bring the third edition of the School Mini Olympics, which came to a close yesterday (Thursday).
The event got underway on April 21 with more than 3,000 students, representing 16 government and 18 private schools, in the fray.
Organized by the BOC in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, the Mini Olympics featured a record nine sports events this year, namely football, basketball, volleyball, athletics, aquathlon, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo and athletics for disabilities.
The curtain came down on the third edition of the Mini Olympics yesterday with the 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.
After playing the national anthem of the Kingdom of Bahrain, kicked off the closing ceremony programme, speeches were presented by Shaikh Ali stressed the importance of this 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 of different sports who can be the future of the nation in a variety of sports.
On her part, Education Ministry’s representative Dr Shaikha Al Jeeb expressed the ministry’s commitment to establish such activities that helps in beefing up local clubs and nationals teams with promising athletes.
She ended her speech by commending the School Mini Olympics, which she described as a way to show the joint action between the two sides in the field of sports, and asserted the importance to continuing this cooperation to further bolster these programs in the future.
A short film was then played to celebrate this occasion, focusing on some of the most significant action from the Third School Mini Olympics.
Representatives from the sponsoring companies, the participating schools and other contributors were then honored by the event patron.
The ceremony concluded with Shaikh Ali presenting a special commemorative shield to Dr Shaikha Al Jeeb, before the Olympic torch flame was put out to announce the end of the Third School Mini Olympics.