Next month, the world's attention will be on Paris as the best athletes on the planet congregate for the Olympic Games.
The UAE is also aiming to make a mark at the biggest carnival of sports in the world, with athletes such as Safiya Al Sayegh, who will become the first Emirati female cyclist to fly the national flag at the Games. This year will also mark the UAE's first group participation with a five-person showjumping team.
First recognised in 1980, the UAE made its debut at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The all-male team was composed of seven athletes, with runner Mubarak Ismail Amber as flag bearer. None reached the finals of their events, and it took 20 years for the UAE to bring home a first Olympic medal.
Sheikh Ahmed bin Hasher, a sharpshooter, made history at the 2004 Games in Athens by winning the gold medal in the men's double trap competition.
As opposed to traditional trap shooting, double trap features two clay discs being hurled simultaneously. Shooters stand 14.6m from the apparatus that fires the clay targets and are allowed one shot at each disc. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore from India was awarded the silver that year, while China’s Wang Cheng won the bronze medal.
Sheikh Ahmed’s gold medal win was particularly remarkable given that he had only taken up the sport seven years earlier when he was 34. The first Summer Olympics he took part in was in 2000.
After becoming a gold medallist, he took part again in 2008 in Beijing, which marked another historic UAE representation at the Games. Sheikha Maitha bint Mohammed, the daughter of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, was the flag bearer that year.
Sheikha Maitha competed in taekwondo. In the 67kg classification she was seeded 14th and fell to eventual gold medallist Hwang Kyung-seon of South Korea. She also competed in the repechage round, losing to Sandra Saric of Croatia.
Swimmer Nada Al Bedwawi made history again in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, where she became the UAE’s first female swimmer to participate in an Olympic Games. Al Bedwawi, 18 at the time, was given the honour of being the flag-bearer in the opening ceremony, leading a delegation of 13 Emirati athletes around the Maracana Stadium.
Sheikh Ahmed is still the only Emirati athlete to win gold at the Olympics. The country earned a bronze in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro through Moldovan-born Emirati judoka Sergiu Toma in the the 81kg judo category, when he beat Italy’s Matteo Marconcini to win the third-placed medal.
And now, as the action moves to France, the UAE will once again hope to make history and bring home more sporting glory.
After securing her historic qualification for Paris 2024 in November, cyclist Al Sayegh, 22, said her childhood dream had come true.
"Am I dreaming? I’m going to be an Olympian? And the very first Emirati female cyclist?," she posted on Instagram. "It would’ve been a dream if I just sat and wished for it, but it’s a goal come true because there’s blood, sweat, pain, enjoyment, struggles, memories, tears, up to this historical and emotional achievement."
Showjumper Abdulla Al Marri, 42, told The National earlier that the odds are against the UAE as they will be competing against much bigger countries. But he believes the team can bring home a medal.
“We love our horses. It’s in our culture and we have been trying hard to qualify,” he said. “We dare to dream to win a medal and hopefully it’s going to happen.”
