“We provide monthly grants of up to Dh10,000 to the champions and start working on sports projects for the 2021 Paris Olympics.”

Hassan Fakak, director of the technical department of the National Olympic Committee, spoke about how to keep up with the Moroccan champions who will represent the Kingdom at the 2024 Paris Olympics, and the strategies adopted in preparation for this global competition.

In a statement to The Champion, Fakak said:When we came back from the Tokyo Olympics, on September 9, 2021, the IOC held a meeting with the Olympic participating universities and the champion universities that qualified for the Paris Olympics, and we discussed projects for preparing champions in sports.“.

He continued:The universities presented us their sports programs, including the list of qualified champions, the list of technical staff, the training courses arranged in and outside Morocco, and the program of international meetings that the champions attend to obtain points that qualify them or gain global or international experience.“.

He added:The IOC accepted the sports project, discussed it with the universities concerned and determined the budget allocated to it. We established a partnership contract with the universities and provided funding for their sports projects, whether training in Morocco or abroad, or participating in international conferences.“.

He continued:After that, we follow the champions and record their achievements in international competitions and how to train. In addition to the mental preparation, we also provide some services to the champions, including medical support and consultations with nutrition experts. We use 60 or 70 champions as references, and we are surprised that only 10 to 15 out of 100 seriously follow“.

He continued:We also provide Olympic scholarships to our champions, with some receiving monthly scholarships of Dh10,000, some receiving Dh6,000 and some receiving Dh3,500, based on the results achieved by each champion and their global and African rankings, their global rankings and the titles they have won.“.

He concluded:We created an app where the champions record their information every week, including training hours, hospital stays and all the information related to health conditions, and every 4 months we collect the champions to provide them with this information while they meet with doctors, nutrition officers, mental health equipment, etc… We also bought special sports equipment for some champions.“.