Team GB athletes made their way to Dubai Sports City athletics track to inspire the next generation of Olympic hopefuls.
Ultimate Athletics held the ultimate race night for Dubai’s young athletes in a number of events including the hurdles, high jump, javelin and 800 metre events.
Coaching the youngsters during the evening on behalf of Team GB was former double 400m European junior champion Laviai Nielsen. “I’m very impressed by the event, you don’t really think about sport in Dubai unless you’re here but there’s some real talent on show,” the 21-year-old told Sport360°.
“They’re taking it really seriously, maybe we’ll see some of these kids at the next Olympics.” As for her own Olympic dreams, Nielsen has her sights set on Tokyo 2020 having narrowly missed out on Rio.
Champion: Megan Dingle won the 800m
“Tokyo is the aim so I’m just taking things one step at a time because I’m focused on the European Championships in August, then the World Championships next year to look forward to as well.”
For Nielsen, training is slotted in around her studies. “Training varies throughout the year but I do four or five hours of training a day so it’s quite intense,” added Nielsen, whose twin sister Lina is also a sprinter.
“But the nice thing about the 400m is that it varies a lot throughout the year, I do three gym sessions and three track sessions a week so it’s a combination of endurance, speed and speed endurance.
“I’m still at university and in my last year, so it’s very stressful and there’s a lot of sacrifices to be made and you have to be disciplined. I’m so excited to be done though. “University is very different but it does offer me an escape because training is so intense, I like having an escape from it with my education.”
A notable winner from the Ultimate Athletics was 14-year-old Megan Dingle who won the 800m in a time of 2:20:49. “In Dubai there’s good competition at this distance but I actually prefer the 1500m,” said the Dubai English Speaking College student. “I really enjoy running because there’s a great community of people doing it, and we all get along because we have similar interests. The big dream is the Olympics so I’ll keep aiming for that.”
Former European junior 200m silver medalist Leon Reid was part of the star-studded coaching staff at hand and was left thoroughly impressed with the talent on show. “It’s crazy competitive here, there’s cameras on the finish line and the kids are dipping for the finish.
It’s good fun and it seems to get better every year. The parents are really encouraging of the kids and if they want to build champions then they’re certainly going the right way about it.”
Reid will be competing for Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games in Australia next month, and says a trip to the UAE has been the perfect tonic for a gruelling schedule. “I’ve got three part-time jobs, I work in a night club, I work in a school coaching kids and a supplement shop as well so I have to train on not a lot of sleep.
“I get up and train at around 10am until 1pm usually and then go to the school and from there I’ll have three hours before the nightclub work and when I’m not training I’ll be in the shop.
“It’s pretty exhausting so you can imagine how pleased I was to come here because it’s kind of a training holiday for me in many ways. I’ve got a lot of downtime because I train in the morning from 8am until 12pm so then we’ve got the time to do what we want.”
Ultimate Athletics has been running since 2015 and educates athletics with theory workshops as well as access to sports science-qualified coaches, nutritionists and physiotherapists.
