Qatar’s women’s beach volleyball team makes history by competing for the first time in an international tournament.
Qatar’s women’s team competed in a major international beach volleyball tournament for the first time in history as Damla Yagmur and Rehanna Al-Tobaishi featured in the ongoing Volleyball World Beach Pro Tour Elite16 event in Doha.
Despite being beaten in the qualification round against Latvia’s Tina Graudina and Anastasija Samoilova on Tuesday, the duo graced the sands of Doha, inspiring a rising generation of athletes.
“To be part of history feels like a movement,” 21-year-old Al-Tobaishi told Volleyball World in an interview.
“As a Qatari woman, I feel like I do a lot of new stuff and present a new mindset for other women here. At first, I was actually very nervous to be on the court. I just had to get through a few minutes at the beginning, and then it was actually OK,” the Qatari athlete added.
Yagmur voiced her participation in the event as creating history, telling Volleyball World: “I am feeling very happy to be part of history and I am thankful to our coaches, Qatar Volleyball and the Qatar Olympic Committee for supporting us.”
“I hope we will do much better in the future. We will build upon the experience we get from this, and we will continue,” the 20-year-old added.
Still representing Qatar are golden stars Cherif Younousse and Ahmed Tijan, who will begin their quest for the title win when they take on Italy’s Cottafava Samuele and Nicolai Paolo in the opening Pool D match on Wednesday.
