JEDDAH, 19 April 2005 — Egypt crushed Kuwait 18-8 to win the water polo gold medal via a clean sweep on the penultimate day of competitions yesterday in the First Islamic Solidarity Games.
The Egyptian water polo players simply outclassed the opposition in the round-robin event to finish with an immaculate 5-0 win-loss record.
Kazakhstan, at 4-1 claimed the silver medal beating the hosts 5-4 in their final match. The bronze medal went to Saudi Arabia who had a 2-1-2 win-draw-loss card.
The Kingdom also lost the semifinal in volleyball but thankfully not the one they hate to lose - football where they set up a final showdown with Morocco after disposing of Syria 4-0. Morocco won on penalty kicks 5-4 against Iran in the first semifinal at the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Stadium here. Iran and Morocco were tied 1-1 at the end of regulation period.
On a day of mixed results, Saudi Arabia won the handball semifinal against Egypt 24-22 and will play Algeria, a 32-27 winner over Syria, in the final today.
In basketball, the gold medal game will be between Algeria and Azerbaijan after they respectively beat Tunisia 65-60 and Iran 68-67 in close semifinal contests at the sports hall of Prince Mohamed ibn Abdul Aziz Sports City in Madinah.
The classification matches saw Morocco top Saudi Arabia 71-61 for fifth place, Syria down Jordan 67-62 for seventh, Chad crush Palestine 76-53 for 9th and Pakistan trip Sudan 73-61 for 11th position.
The Kingdom extended tough Egypt to a decider before going down 3-2 (19-25, 25-22, 25-18, 21-25, 17-15) in a thrilling volleyball semifinal.
In the race to 15 decision set, the Egyptians had to quash the Saudis’ last-ditch rally from five points down at 12-7 to escape with the victory that lifted them to a final clash with Iran.
The Iranian spikers scored a straight sets 3-0 win over Algeria.
In goal ball, Iran scored two victories in a single day to capture the gold. They defeated Saudi Arabia 8-3 in the morning semifinal then returned hours later to beat Algeria 7-3 in the final.
Algeria advanced to a showdown with Iran by scoring a 6-3 win over Iraq who claimed the bronze medal after defeating Saudi Arabia 11-3 in the afternoon battle for third place.
The Saudi national football team settled right down to business scoring two goals in each half.
The was hardly any opposition from the Syrian side as the Kingdom opened a 2-0 lead with goals from striker Muhammad Amin in the ninth minute and defender Hadi Sharifi in the 39th minute.
Apparently keen to send out a strong message to Morocco, the Kingdom team played even stronger in the last half of the contest.
Amin turned in a through ball in the 60th minute for his second goal of the evening before Saad Al-Harthi set up Saad Al-Zahrani for Saudi’s fourth goal by outmaneuvering the Syrian goalkeeper.
In a post-game interview, Amin thanked the crowd the supporting the team and urged them to again come for today’s all-important match.
— Additional input by Mahmoud Ahmad & Muhammad Al-Sheikhi
