Sitting in a white 4×4 pickup truck, Nasser al-Marri watched his remote-controlled camel race through the Qatari desert and insisted that sport makes football meaningless, by comparison.
As Qatar prepares for the arrival of more than a million fans for the World Cup, the camel racing track in Al-Shahaniya hopes to gain a boost with the world’s most popular sport.
“Camels are part of us. They are our greatest passion,” said Nasser, 23, sitting in a vehicle with three other camel trainers, the “mudammers,” at the track 40 kilometers east of the capital, Doha.
Driving parallel to the track, they control little robot jockeys on the camels’ backs and make them pick up speed – a modern innovation to replace the child jockeys that used to perform the dangerous activity.
“It’s the number one sport in the Gulf,” said Nasser, while the four youngsters – like most of the country – are anxiously awaiting the Cup, which starts on Sunday (20).
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