Tribune News Network
Alicante (Spain)
Aspire Academy has organised the first overseas training camp for our padel student-athletes since the sport was added to the academy program starting this academic year.
Six players spent two weeks from 5 to 18 November in Spain near the city of Alicante at a professional tennis and padel academy.
Coaches and a teacher accompanied the student-athletes to ensure they kept up to date with their academic progress.
The fast-growing sport of padel was added to the roster of sports at Aspire Academy at the start of the 2023-24 academic year and the programme is being run in collaboration with Padel IN, which has clubs across Qatar and the Middle East.
Spain is one of the nations where Padel has become extremely popular and boasts the current top three players in the world.
The student-athletes split their time between fitness training, padel coaching and their schoolwork.
They were training alongside other boys and girls, some of whom are highly ranked as the centre attracts top-ten-ranked players for their training camps.
Barry Shillabeer, the Performance Lead for the padel programme at Aspire Academy, explained that the student-athletes learnt a lot while in Spain.
"There is no question this type of camp is an immersive experience which the boys embraced warmly as they strive to be better padel players and improve their performance,” he explained.
"We have noticed the positive changes with some players upon return to Qatar which is great to see.” "With the padel programme at Aspire just a few months old we are working hard to adjust the behaviour of the athletes to ensure they can develop into professional sportsmen.”
The coach also praised the work the student-athletes did during their time in Spain.
"Working with the coaches who are resident at the JC Ferrero Equelite Padel Academy our boys were pushed hard to adjust technically and tactically,” he explained. "They had to learn new skills and demands from the training environment in terms of both fitness and their padel skills.” "They had the chance to observe the behaviour of the elite athletes around them and to see how they prepared for training, how they train, the effort and focus they maintain as well as the athleticism that they exhibited.”
Next up for the student-athletes will be taking part in various categories at the Qatar Padel-In Masters from 3-9 December at the Padel-In courts next to Aspire Academy.