First InterSchool Tchoukball Tournament

In april was held in the Mouath Bin Jabel School in Sharjah the first InterSchool Tchoukball Tournament organized by the Sharjah Educational Zone.

8 Schools took part in the event divided in 3 category (under 12, under 16 and above 16):

Sharbah School

Ali Bin AbiTaleb School

Mohamed AL Fatah School

Al Khaleej Arabi School

Sharjah Boys - Model School

Ghafiah Primary School

Mliha Primary School

Ahmed Bin Hanbal Secondary School

The final was plaied by Shahbah and Ali Bin AbiTaleb, in a very good match with players showing how they are improving in the sport, with nice shoots and defenses. The final score was 14x9 for Shahbah.

We congratulate all the schools, players and teachers who took part in this event and a special thank for the director of the Mouath Bin Jabel School and for the director of the Sharjah Educational Zone for the support in the promotion of tchoukball.

Tchoukball Presentations

With the support of the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Sharjah Education Zone, some presentations of tchoukball were held in the UAE for the pupils and physical education teachers.

The most recent one was in Wadi al Hilou (Sharjah Eastern) in the Girls School. It was held on the 12th of february 2009 with the support of the physical education supervisor Dra. Wahiba Zaghloul and the organization of the principal of the school Mrs Amna Ibrahim Meer and the PE teacher Hala Al Arabi

For more pictures of this and other events, please visit the UAE pictures section in the Asian Pacific Tchoukball Federation website:

http://122.117.195.111/aptbf/modules/xoopsgallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album272

Asia Pacific Tchoukball Championship

From 20th to 22nd of June 2008 was held in the HongKong University of Technology and Science the 3rd Asia Pacific Tchoukball Championship. There was 6 teams participating - HongKong, Macau, Singapore, Taywan, UAE and Malaysia. This was qualifying event for the World Games 2009 to be held in Taywan (Kaohsiung). In the male and female competition Taywan and Singapore got the qualification to go the major event next year.
UAE was represented in this event by the team from Sharjah with the support and sponsorship of the Sharjah Educational Zone and Al Murabaha Real Estate. (http://www.almurabaha.com/)

All the teams came very prepared for this championship and all the matches were very tight with most of the final scores very close and the winner just to be revealed in the last minute. The young UEA national squad didnt win any match but got very good results and even against the host, Hong Kong, ended up the match in a draw (42x42), but unfourtunately lost in the extra time – 46x44.

During the event was organized a referee course and 2 tunisian residents in Sharjah, mr Mohamed Zaghdoud and mrs Nabiha Houais got their certificate as the first arab referee for the Asian Pacific Tchoukball Federation and they are already invited to go to the World Games 2009 to referee some matches.
Like in the WarmUp07 held in Taywan last year, during the gala dinner at the end of the event, the UEA players were a sensation with their typical dresses and with the joy of the arab music.

Play Tchoukball !

For futher information about the sport, EK tchoukball club, events, training sessions and how to learn and play tchoukball, please contact Julio Calegari - 050 260 6370 - julio.calegari @ tchoukball. org

First victory of UAE in a international event

The first UAE national tchoukball squad took part in the WarmUp World Game FITB Tchoukball Tournament, held in Kaohsiung, Taywan, from 9th to 11th of November 2007. To go to this event, we counted with the sponsorship and support of the Ministry of Education, Interschool Sport Association and Education Zone of Sharjah.
Despite to be the youngest team in the tournament (with an average of 15 y.o.) all the players bravely played all matched gaining great result, including the first victory to the country, against South Korea, with a final score of 56x40.
The match with Macao (which in the end of the tournament got 4th place), UAE performed a very well, but lost in the last minute for one single point – 55x54.
Since UAE was the first Arabic team to take part in a FITB international tournament, it was also the sensation for the local media. Within the 6 articles about the tournament, in 4 of them there was a picture of some team playing with UAE.
The Gala Dinner Closing Ceremony where also a great moment for the young Arabic team, when all the players came wearing dishdesh (kandora) and show on the stage some of the gulf music singing and playing alaude and drum. It was also a magical event, gathering Chineses, Asians, Europeans and Arabics in a friendly atmosphere!
In july 2008 will be held in Singapore the Asian Pacific Tchoukball Tournament, when the 2 first teams will be classified for the World Games 2009.
Now it is time to promote and develop tchoukball in the UAE in a way to be able to have a stronger and more mature team for this event, as well as the first female emirate team. As a coach, I can say that I am proud of those young boys, who, started playing tchoukball just 10 months, and traveled miles to defend their flag and to show their pride to be the first Arabic team of this sport! I am pretty sure that they will never forget this experience and they will be happy and motivated to continue their training and to pass to their friends what they learnt.

To see some picture of the matches, visit:

http://tchoukball.ath.cx/wg2009/modules/xoopsgallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album401

Emirates Airlines - EK Tchoukball Club

On September 7th 2007, in Dubai, UAE, was held the first General Assembly of the EK Tchoukball Club, with the aim of its foundation and election of the president and executive committee.
The elected executive committee is composed by the following staff:
President - Julio Calegari (CC - GR2)
Vice-president – Juliana Amadeu (CC - GR2)
Secretary – Aneliza Trani (CC - GR2)
Treasurer – Ronney de Barros (CC - GR1)
Event director – Rafael Diniz (CC - GR1)
During the holy month of Ramadan the training session will be restarted and held in Dubai. These session will open to all EK staff, relatives and friends.
In partnership with Al Khaleej Arabi Secondary School (Sharjah) and Al Mawaked Private School (Dubai) will be organized the first tchoukball tournament in the UAE.
For futher information about the sport, EK tchoukball club, events, training sessions and how to learn and play tchoukball, please contact Julio Calegari - 050 260 6370 - julio.calegari @ tchoukball. org

Tchoukball in the UAE

Tchoukball came to the UAE in end of 2006, when Julio Calegari move to Dubai and start its promotion with the Tunisian physical education teacher Mohamed Zaghdoud.

Julio played with some success and has played in the Brazilian national team in five international tournaments in Europe and South America. He travelled to Switzerland and Taiwan, where he took courses to learn more about coaching and refereeing Tchoukball. He is now an international promoter of the sport and have travelled around the world to make presentations and teach the game, including to Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Kenya, Pakistan, Poland and Singapore.

Mohamed found tchoukball in the web and was looking for a way to spread the new sport in the country.

They started at Al Arabi Secondary Public School, in Sharjah to organise the first ever games of Tchoukball. Julio brought the Tchoukball frames and the official ball, explained the game and did a few simple exercises with the boys, and then they started playing. Within one to two hours they already had some great matches going.

In November 2006, they have been in contact with the UAE Ministry of Education and have met with those responsible for physical exercise (PE) in the Emirates. They were suitably impressed and they have been asked to prepare a presentation for 80 leaders of PE in the UAE. This presentation was held in march 2007 in Sharjah with a great success.

The next step now is to set up a course for any of the PE instructors who are interested to play and teach Tchoukball. And the bigger aim is to take part in November in the international Tchoukball tournament in Taywan, with the first emirate team!