JEDDAH, 11 September 2006 — Saudi Arabia returned from a fruitful campaign in the recent 18th GCC Swimming and Water Polo Championships in Kuwait where they won a fistful of medals including eight golds.
To punctuate their success, the Kingdom retained the water polo title beating hosts Kuwait 8-7 in the gold medal game. The victory was the result of hard work and overseas training in Belgrade and Serbia and Montenegro for 20 days, according to Malik Mukhtar.
The 18-year old Mukhtar is a mainstay of the champion team that the Saudi Arabian Swimming Federation (SASF) built for the GCC meet. Ali Al-Mansoori, Faisal Barnawi, Hatan Al-Ayan, Abdullah Al-Zahrani and Yasser Barnawi complete the roster.
Saudi swimming star and team captain Ahmed Al-Kudmani set a new Pan-Arab and GCC records on the way to winning the gold medal in the 50-meter breastroke. His clocking of 28.89 improved by a tenth of a second the old existing record.
While Kudmani’s effort sparked a Saudi gold rush, Bader Abdulrahman Al-Muhana claimed a golden double and SASF’s age-groupers also shone on the final day of the seven-day championships featuring the top swimmers and water polo athletes from the six GCC countries including Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman.
Eighteen standouts from the national pool represented the Kingdom and just missed the overall title only because the host country had the more entries in the competition.
Al-Kudmani, 27, said that he was very pleased with his team performance. It was really impressive, he said, because “there were only 18 of us yet we managed to win gold medals though it was a bit hard to compete against the Kuwaitis not because of the quality but the quantity.”
SASF General Secretary Ali Bin Saleh Bin Oun Al-Zayed praised the swimmers’ performance at the GCC championships and said they were really prepared well this summer. He added SASF had excellent training camps both internationally and here in the Kingdom and the players have followed the strategies mapped out by the coaching staff.
After the Kudmani victory, Yousuf Al-Yousef and Al-Muhana won in the 200-m individual medley in 2:13.06 and 50-meter butterfly in 28.82 to round out a three-gold haul on the first day in which Saudis also won bronze medals in the 400-meter freestyle and 4 X 400-m freestyle courtesy of Mohammed Al-Ghareeb and the quartet of Loai Tashkandi, Al-Ghareeb, Mohammed al Yousef and Yousef Al-Yousef.
Al-Muhana added the 100-meter butterfly in a personal best time of 57.39 to his title collection during the second day that saw the Kingdom finish a fighting second to the Kuwaitis in the 4 X 100 medley relay.
The Saudi age-groupers took gold medals in the 400-m freestyle for age bracket 13-14, 1,500-m freestyle (15-17) through Loay Tashkandi, 50-m butterfly (13-14) through Nazzir Al-Hamoud and 100-m freestyle (15-17) through Hazim Tashkandi. Winning silver medals were Saad Al-Qahtani in the 100-m freestyle (15-17), Hamza Mukhtar in the 200-m backstroke (13-14) and Nizar Tashkandi in the 200-m backstroke (11-12). Waddah Al-Dossari clinched the Saudi team’s lone bronze medal in the 50-m backstroke (11-12).
