Since 2012, the country has preserved the holiday on the second Tuesday of every February 

Residents across Qatar are marking the annual National Sports Day (NSD) on Tuesday with the slogan ‘The Choice is Yours’, featuring 130 activities with over 100 entities throughout the small peninsula.

Headlined as a holiday to promote a healthy lifestyle among the population, NSD makes sports activities available to the general public across various parts of the country.

From the Doha Corniche to Aspire, Zone, The Pearl Island, Qatar Foundation, Lusail, Al Shamal, Al Sheehaniya, Al Wakra, and other locations, the holiday is unique as Qatar is one of the few nations to dedicate a day to sports.

Education City’s Oxygen Park will host a series of activities, as will Aspire Zone, Msheireb Downtown Doha, and Lusail Boulevard. This year, activities will range from football to basketball, tennis to taekwondo, and cycling to skydiving.

Qatar joins the likes of its neighbour Bahrain, Iran, India, and Japan to raise the significance of sports in society.

The country intends to battle the rising obesity rates within the local population as part of the Qatar National Vision 2030 initiative.

Due to the high temperatures in the summer and the reliance on cars for transportation, Qataris are less likely to be active compared to non-Qataris.

“In a 2018 study of 164 963 schoolchildren (aged 5–19 years), the overall prevalence of overweight and obesity was 21·2% and 21·5%, respectively, with obesity prevalence being higher among indigenous Qataris (25%) than in non-Qataris (19%),” according to a 2021 study titled, Obesity in Qatar: current and future strategies.