Return to Riyadh
When Chris Lomax MBE and I created Participate World, we were excited to see where our community sport mission could take us, and inspired to work with as diverse a group of people as possible.
Having first come out to Saudi Arabia in October last year, we've been keen to return ever since, and tomorrow we'll be participating in the 10K event at the Saudi Sports for All Federation - الاتحاد السعودي للرياضة للجميع Riyadh Marathon. Wandering around the expo this afternoon, enjoying a little winter sun if we're brutally honest, it was great to experience the excitement and optimism ahead of the Kingdom's major running event. In time, we hope ourselves to contribute to the community sport landscape over here, and it would be great to capitalise on the existing passion for walking, running, and volunteering ... demonstrated with all 50,000 entries sold out across race distances from 5k to 26.2 miles.
The day after tomorrow, we're honoured to be part of the panel discussion for a United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) Executive Diploma on Sports Mega Events and Lasting Impact. The session will be chaired by Andreas L. Csonka and we're both looking forward to catching up with Nasser Al-Khori and Jonathan Miseroy, alongside other experts across both elite and community sport. As always, Chris and I will be championing the importance and value of true socially-focussed and community-led sport and physical activity initiatives, and how if supported fully they can change the world.
And between those to fantastic experiences, tomorrow evening we'll be attending a sporting event the likes of which neither of us have ever experienced ... as the WWE Royal Rumble is in town! We've got no idea what to expect, but looking at the recently-constructed bespoke 25,000 seater temporary stadium from out of our hotel window, I imagine it will be quite a show.
That's it for this week, back to the glorious English winter on Tuesday, and looking forward to grassroots kids football, junior parkrun, and planning the next stage of the Participate World journey.
