Our national athletics team ended its participation in the general Gulf championship in Saudi Arabia in second place with 14 medals — five gold, five silver and four bronze — behind the Saudi team, who finished first, level with Qatar on five golds but ahead in silver and bronze.
What our team’s champions achieved is a success by any measure, given that they relied on a group of promising athletics talents while many stayed away, such as Barshim, Ogunode, Francis, Musab Balla, Mohammed Al Garni and other champions, making way for another group to defend Qatar’s colours in future challenges for the present and the future. Kuwait took third place with 11 medals, Bahrain fourth with six medals, ahead of Oman, who were fifth in silver, and finally the UAE with two bronzes.
Eight medals at the close
Our national team ended its campaign at the championship by winning eight medals, including three golds through Ashraf Al Seifi in the hammer throw, Muammar Barshim in the high jump, and Mabrouk Saleh in the race walk. Hamad Al Amin added high jump silver, Hussein Muthanna race walk silver, Ahmed Al Seifi hammer silver, and Jamal Hairan 1500 m silver, while the 4×400 m relay team won bronze. These add to the national team’s medal tally from the first two days, which saw Rashed Al Manai shine in the triple jump to win gold, Mohammed Qaida in the javelin, the Al Moghni brothers take silver and bronze in the discus, Jamal Abdel Nasser take 400 m hurdles silver, and Muadh Abdulrahman take 3000 m steeplechase bronze.
Yesterday’s 10000 m walk saw a Qatari sweep as our stars finished first and second, with a Kuwaiti third and the Saudi failing to finish. Our champion Mabrouk Saleh Nasser won gold, covering the race in 47:27.50, our champion Hussein Mohammed Muthanna took silver in 57:29.97, and Kuwait’s Faisal Jassim took third-place bronze in 60:21.21, while Saudi Arabia’s Fahad Abdullah Al Fuhaid did not finish the race.
The hammer throw also saw Qatari dominance, with the Al Seifi brothers deservedly taking first and second place, as Ashraf Amjad Al Seifi won gold with 75.33 m and Ahmed Al Seifi took silver with 62.82 m.
Qatar’s two promising talents shone in the high jump to take first and third place, as promising star Muammar Barshim won gold with 2.23 m and Hamdi Al Amin took bronze with 2.17 m.
Qatar also took third place in the 4×400 m relay in 3:17.05, while the Omani team won gold in 3:07.86, and the Saudi team took second-place silver in 3:10.77.
Our runner Jamal Abdel Latif Hairan won 1500 m silver, finishing second in 3:53.57, while Bahrain’s Mohammed Ayyub won gold in 3:52.92, and Saudi Arabia’s Faisal Abdo took third-place bronze in 4:03.52.
It is worth noting that Qatar’s delegation was headed by Khalifa Abdulmalik, the federation’s executive director and national teams director.
