The Director General of the Olympic Council of Asia and President of World Aquatics, Capt. Husain Al Musallam, has been bestowed an Honorary Doctorate Causa Award in Sports Science by the Vasil Levski National Sports Academy in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Iran NOC; Tehran: This prestigious
award is in recognition of Captain Husain’s remarkable services to the sport of
aquatics as an athlete, official, administrator and now world leader. In his
acceptance speech, Capt. Husain said he was “extremely proud and grateful” to
receive the honor. “I will always treasure in my memory this very special day,”
he said. Capt. Husain informed the audience that next month would mark the
second anniversary of his election as President of FINA, which is now known as
World Aquatics to encompass all six disciplines. “As I look out into the
audience here today, I see many young men and women. You are so lucky to be at
an Academy like this. You will all have different talents, different strengths,
different weaknesses. But I am sure that you all have one thing in common: You
all have dreams. You all want to achieve something. I admire that. I love
speaking to young people and hearing about their ambitions. “This is what
motivates me most in my role as President of World Aquatics. It is my
responsibility to enable as many of our aquatics athletes as possible to fulfil
their dreams. The Federation represents swimmers, divers, high divers, open
water swimmers, water polo players and artistic swimmers. It is such a large
group of people, and my job is to work hard for all of them.”
OCA Director-General spoke of the
sacrifices athletes must make to reach the top, and this why he adopted the
“athletes will always come first” policy in his role as President. “When I was
a young man, I was an athlete. I was a swimmer who represented my country,
Kuwait. Swimming has given me so much over the past 50 years. It has given me
friends for life, it has given me the opportunity to travel all over the world,
and it has taught me so much about discipline and commitment. “Sometimes I like
to wonder what I would have said when I was a teenage swimmer if somebody had
told me that one day, I would become President of the International Federation.
I am sure that I would not have believed them! There had never been a President
of FINA from Asia. It would have seemed like an impossible dream. And that is
one thing that I have learned in my life, and it is a very important message
that I like to give to all young people: Do not believe that any dream is
impossible. My journey is proof that even the impossible dreams can come true.”
Source: OCA website