Qatar

The National Olympic Committee of Qatar was formed on 14 March 1979 and provisionally recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1980 at the IOC session in Moskva. Qatar made its initial Olympic appearance in Los Angeles in 1984 with a team of eight track & field athletes, a football (soccer) team, and four shooters. Qatar has appeared at every Olympics since. The Gulf nation won its first Olympic medal in 1992 when Mohamed Sulaiman finished third in the men’s 1,500 metres in track & field athletics. In 2000, Asaad Said Saif added another bronze, won in the 105 kg class weightlifting. At recent Olympics, Qatar has fielded a number of athletes that have been “obtained” from other nations, notably Kenyan runners and Bulgarian weightlifters. The aforementioned Asaad Said Saif, for examples, was born under the name Angel Popov. In 2012 two more bronze medals have been won by Nasser Al-Attiya in the men’s skeet shooting and Mutaz Essa Barshim in the men’s high junp. Qatar has never competed at the Olympic Winter Games. Doha, Qatar bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games, but was eliminated before the final vote.

Qatar has competed in 8 Olympic Games with 108 athletes but no women athletes and this has become of a point of contention with the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Women have not been allowed to compete for Qatar because of religious restrictions. This is in violation of the Olympic Charter, but no sanctions have been made as of May 2012. Finally four female athletes competed in London and Bahya Al-Hamad became the first Qatari woman to represent her country at the Olympics.