DOHA, 16 December 2006 — Eight gold, six bronze medals. Finally, Saudi Arabia has arrived as an emerging sports power in the Asian Games. Though the gulf separating giant China from the rest of Asia remains wide as ever the Kingdom achievement at these games is one big success story in itself.
By sending a huge delegation of 214 athletes and officials and mediapersons Saudi sports brass did not expect much, with participation rather than results the main consideration. But the Kingdom ended up surpassing their gold output from the 2002 Busan Games by one, and their successes in less popular sports of bowling, karate, and yes, volleyball, at least from the Saudi point of view, revived the debate that there’s more to Saudi sports than football.
Athletics was the Saudi bread and butter in the Asiad campaign, accounting for more than half of the country’s medal haul at five golds and two bronzes.
The Kingdom volleyball team, with a bronze medal, were easily the surprise package of the tournament, shocking Asia No. 1 Japan in the quarterfinal before losing to China in the semifinal that relegated them to the bronze medal game with Qatar. No problem, their medal finish was the first by any Saudi volleyball team at this level.
Equestrian, a sport rich in Saudi cultural heritage and tradition, thankfully delivered with a gold in the team show jumping event.
But swimming failed to live up to its much-hyped image with ace swimmer Ahmed Kudmani getting shut out of the medals.
The Kingdom did battles in 17 sport disciplines in the 15-day quadrennial event that attracted 45 countries and territories.
The brothers Bader and Hassan Al-Sheikh got the ball rolling for Saudi Arabia when they won the doubles gold in bowling, where the Saudis also won the all events gold and a bronze each in trios and team of five event.
Faisal Al-Juraifani, Yousef Akbar, Ahmed Al-Hdyan and the youngest player in the 15th Asian Games, 15-year old Faisal Al-Sugati complete the successful bowling team.
“What can I say! I’m so proud of the boys’ achievements in bowling. They were trained well and as a result got honorable results,” said Ibrahim Al-Juraifani, president of the Saudi Bowling Federation.
Prince Nawaf bin Mohammed, president of the Saudi Athletics Federation, praised the performance of bowling team as well as its manager. “I believe that the bowling team was also a star of the Saudi participation in the 15th Asian Games. Its team management was a role model for the other team just as the volleyball team was.”
Four out of the 11 Saudi riders secured the gold medal at the team event show jumping event namely Khaled Al-Eid, 37, Prince Abdullah Al-Saud, 22, Abdullah Al-Sharbatly, and Kamal Bahamdan, 36.
According to Al-Eid the team events are usually harder than the individual events because each one feels the pressure and responsibility, yet they were “thank God lucky and managed to be on the top.”
Nineteen year-old Thamer Al-Malki, from Hilal club, made a pitch for Saudi karate team when he won the bronze medal in the men’s kumite -55kg 1/8 final after beating Soares Jaime Godinho from Timor Leste 7- 0. Judo player Abdulrahman Al-Malki had the tough luck of being bracketed with some of the world’s best to diminish his chances for a medal although he managed to win three out of the four preliminary matches.
The other team sports where the Kingdom entered like water polo and handball got the experience they needed in an event of this magnitude. Shooting, which gave Saudi Arabia a medal in 1994, was out of target, probably because it badly needs new blood to replace the veterans who had seen better days.
Weightlifting was expected to deliver after a remarkable showing in the Islamic Games, which the country hosted in 2005, but it failed.
The other Saudi teams who participated but without success were snooker, taekwondo, artistic gymnastics, cycling, boxing and wrestling.
Hopefully, in the next Asian Games the experience that these teams gained here would translate into medals. See them in Guangzhou in China in 2010.
