THE HEAD of the Egyptian National Sports Council (NSC), Hassan Sakr, joined David Arnold, president of the American University in Cairo (AUC), Amr Salama, AUC counsellor and Nabil Fahmi, AUC alumnus and former Egyptian ambassador to the United States, for the soft opening of the state-of-the-art sports complex at AUC's new campus in New Cairo. "When envisioning this new campus, the university made a decision to ensure that our sports programmes, which we are all extremely proud of, would be provided quality facilities on the new campus," said David Arnold, addressing the attendees at the inauguration ceremony. "As a result of that decision," he added, "the complex is the largest space on our new campus with more than 40,000 square metres of indoor and outdoor space." The indoor area of AUC sports complex includes a 2,000-seat arena main court, a martial arts arena, which seats up to 300, squash courts, exercise and fitness rooms, a free- weight studio, saunas and steam rooms. The outdoor space includes the track and field and soccer stadium. This is in addition to an Olympic-size swimming pool, a soccer practice field, tennis, basketball, handball and volleyball courts; and a jogging and cycling track. Arnold emphasized that AUC is not building this complex for AUC only but "is intended to serve the whole of Egypt." He added that AUC is ready to cooperate with the NSC in organising and hosting Egyptian sports events using AUC sports complex facilities. Appreciating the effective role of AUC in promoting high quality education in addition to providing such a state-of-the art sports facility, Sakr declared the intention of the NSC to sign, in the near future, several sports protocols with AUC that could activate such cooperation between the two entities. "It gives me great pleasure to share with you the ceremony of the new sports facilities inauguration, which is considered a great investment to students' sports in Egypt and the Arab world," Sakr said. Next month, AUC will host the first competition in the new sports complex with athletes from the American University of Beirut , who will visit AUC for a series of games including men's football, women's basketball, men's and women's volleyball, and tennis. AUC was founded 90 years ago and is a major contributor to the social, political and cultural life of the Arab region. It is a vital bridge between East and West, linking Egypt and the region to the world through scholarly research, partnerships with academic and research institutions, and study abroad programmes. An independent, nonprofit, apolitical, non-sectarian and equal-opportunity institution, AUC is fully accredited in Egypt and the US.
