Meeting a Champion

Shaikh Salman with my son Arif, originally uploaded by malyousif.

I had the pleasure of meeting this fine Bahraini champion again last night where he rightly was lauded for his achievement of being crowned the Formula BMW Asia Champion at a ceremony thrown in his honour by the Capital Governate which was also attended by his team’s owner, Shaikh Khalifa bin Hamad Al-Khalifa, team sponsors and the media.

Shaikh Khalifa gave an interesting speech in which he outlined the future of the team and what he hopes to see it grow as, and emphasised that Shaikh Salman’s success reflects the success of the whole team and not on just an individual person.

As has been discussed by The Joker, I hope that more athletes will be celebrated in this manner, as this is one ideal way to inculcate patriotism in the Bahraini person.

I missed other Bahraini motorsports champions last night like Hamad Al-Fardan and Fahad Al-Mussallam who were elsewhere battling it out for more glory. Fahad was in Italy doing the Mini challenge while Hamad was in New Zealand.

Congratulations again to all involved, Shaikh Khalifa for being the inspiration and the dynamo behind a good part of the motorsport arena in Bahrain, Shaikh Salman and Hamad for showing us once again that Bahrain does have what it takes to compete and win on the international stage.