Riyadh: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Camel Festival 2022 will kick off on Saturday, July 23 at Taif Camel Square. The competition between participants from different Gulf and international countries will last over 44 days.
The festival seeks to promote the heritage of camel racing in Saudi Arabia and in the Arab and Islamic cultures and to support tourism and economic development in the Kingdom. Enhancing community participation, instilling the national heritage and reflecting the cultural depth of the Kingdom.
The prizes allocated for the festival are the largest in terms of their value at the level of sports in the Kingdom, as they were estimated at more than 56 million riyals. A Crown Prince’s prize of one million riyals has also been allocated for the races that vary between 2 and 6 km.
The race includes several categories in the preliminary stage, which are the Al-Mafared, Al-Haqaiq, Al-Laqaya, Al-Jaz’, Al-Thayana, Al-Hail, Al-Zamoul, and Marathon Run race days.
As per media reports, the past three years of the festival have witnessed great successes and have been a qualitative leap in the sport of camel racing.
This event contributed to making the Kingdom the number one destination in the world for camel sports, which led to the establishment of an international camel federation headed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and headquartered in Riyadh.
The festival also saw the world’s largest camel replica, which was recognized by the Guinness Book of Records in mid-2019.
It was named the largest event of its kind in the world by Guinness World Records in 2018, having broken records after hosting 11,186 races along 787 routes.
2021 edition of the festival also set a new Guinness World Record, with the largest number of camels participating in a camel festival in the world.
The Kingdom annually hosts the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, the world’s such biggest pageant.
Camels are popular animals that are closely related to the heritage of Saudi Arabia. This animal has long been called the “ship of the desert”, being the lifeline of the inhabitants of the desert.
