Bahrain Olympic Committee
Encyclopedia
Bahrain Olympic Committee (IOC code: BRN) is the National Olympic Committee
National Olympic Committee
National Olympic Committees are the national constituents of the worldwide Olympic movement. Subject to the controls of the International Olympic Committee, they are responsible for organizing their people's participation in the Olympic Games...

 representing Bahrain
Bahrain
' , officially the Kingdom of Bahrain , is a small island state near the western shores of the Persian Gulf. It is ruled by the Al Khalifa royal family. The population in 2010 stood at 1,214,705, including 235,108 non-nationals. Formerly an emirate, Bahrain was declared a kingdom in 2002.Bahrain is...

 as a member of the International Olympic Committee. It was formed in 1978 and received official recognition in 1979. It is responsible for organising Bahrain's participation in the Olympic Games
Olympic Games
The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...

.

Office-holders and officials

The President of the National Committee is Sheikh Nasser Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa and the Secretary-General is Sheikh Ahmed Bin Hamad Al-Khalifa. The Chief Executive Officer of the Bahrain Olympic Committee is Sheikh Khalid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa.

The President of the NOC of Bahrain Women & Sport Commission is Mrs Khulood Al-Khlaifat 

Achievements

The Bahrain Olympic Committee sends teams to the Olympic Games to represent Bahrain. In 2008 the Bahrain national team at the Beijing Olympic Games won Bahrain's first Olympic gold medal when the athlete Rashid Ramzi
Rashid Ramzi
Rashid Ramzi is a Moroccan-Bahraini track and field athlete competing internationally for Bahrain in the 800 metres and 1500 metres. Ramzi was investigated by the IAAF after the 2008 Summer Games and was stripped of his gold medal for doping.Ramzi was born in Asfi, Morocco...

 finished 1st in the men's 1500m track event. However in 2009, after a fully validated test for the third generation EPO (erythropoietin) endurance-enhancing hormone mirCERA© (CERA) became available, the International Olympic Committee Executive Board found that Ramzi had committed anti-doping violations after retained specimens tested positive for CERA. The IOC Executive Board disqualified Ramzi and ordered the National Olympic Committee of Bahrain to return Ramzi's medal and diploma.

Controversy over the NOC President's intervention during the 2011 Bahrain pro-democracy protests

On 4 April 2011 the President of the Bahrain Olympic Committee, Nasser Al-Khalifa, a member of the Bahrain royal family, announced on a Bahrain state television show that "restrictive measures" would be taken against anyone who had taken part in anti-government protests during the preceding two months. He observed that "Bahrain is an island with no escape passage, everybody who interfered in these issues will be punished and everybody who took a stand (supporting the regime) will be awarded. The people who stood with or against the king are well-known to us."

The television show broadcast the local sports journalist Faisal Hayat's photograph during a programme attacking well-known sports personalities who had attended pro-democracy protests. A number of sportsmen and athletes were subsequently detained for taking part in the Athletes' and Journalists' March during the pro-democracy reform protests against the Bahrain royal family in Manama on 14 February, including four prominent members of the national football team and nationally known basketball, volleyball, and handball players. Some 150 prominent sports personalities who had taken part in protests, all from the country's Shi'a Muslim majority, were subject to various sanctions including dismissal from their clubs and bans from playing at international level.

Faisal Hayat, who worked as a a journalist for the local newspaper Albilad and was "known for analysing football matches on popular sport shows on Arabic satellite channels", was arrested on 8 April for taking part in the 14 February march. Following a report by the Bahraini human rights organisation Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) the President of the International Sports Press Association AIPS (Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive), Gianni Merlo, called on Bahraini authorities to release Hayat and announced that AIPS would be making an official complaint to the National Olympic Committee of Bahrain.

External links

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