DOHA, 14 December 2006 — There was a lull in the Saudi Arabia medal hunt yesterday as the country prepare to celebrate their best ever Asian Games performance.
All three karate players in action yesterday were shut out of the medals and the surprising volleyball team went down fighting in five sets in the semifinal against China 25-20, 25-11, 23-25, 22-25, 15-13 at the Al-Rayyan Indoor Hall.
After China won the first two sets Saudi Arabia showed why they are the surprise team in the tournament by taking the next two.
In the deciding fifth set, the Chinese handled the pressure better to seal the match and advance to the final.
Ahmed Al-Bakhet and Yasser Al-Makawni led the Saudi team each with 15 spikes followed by Esmael Al-Khaibary with 12.
Team manager and coach Saleh Al-Qasem said they started the match with too much enthusiasm to win and in the process put too much pressure on themselves. “They did not play a relaxed game and this was the big mistake.”
The team was confident and never gave China chances to break their concentration and opportunities to score.
The Saudi coach also said that the Chinese were trying distract his players by engaging in trash talk.
However, “thanks to God our team managed to ignore all that and just concentrated on what to do and how to win,” he said. “The whole spectators were able to see the difference in the third set when the Saudi started scoring and won in two sets in a row.”
He also noted that at the last set the referee missed counting a point for Saudi though it was clear, “the score of 11-12 was supposed to be different,” he said.
At Qatar Sports Club Indoor Hall, Ali Al-Shamrani lost against Malaysian Yoke Wai Lim 3-1 in the men’s kumite -65kg 1/8 final. Saudi’s best hope for a karate medal, 26-year old Yahya Maydy, who qualified to play in the men’s kumite 70kg 1/16 final also lost his match against Bahrain Bassam Al-Juma 6-2.
Wesam Ghulam, 27, was the third Saudi karateka to get beat at the hands of Jordanian Talat Khalil 4-1 in the men’s kumite -75kg 1/8 final.
Khalid Fadwah, karate team manager, was a bit disappointed though he said most of the players did not have experience at the Asian Games before putting them at a disadvantage against the Asiad veterans.
“They were in a training camp for two weeks in Cairo and then for 23 days in Iran and did what they could do,” he said.
At Al-Sadd Aquatic Center the Kingdom water polo team lost the final qualification match for 5th-6th places against Uzbekistan 14-11.
It was all downhill for the water polo team after winning the first match against Hong Kong 19-9. Their only other win was against Korea 14-11 on Tuesday.
Team manager Mohammed Ghallab told Arab News playing with the Asian champions in the beginning of the Games was the hardest part, which led to a defeat especially if you compare the experience of the Saudi team with China and Japan .
“These team are champions and my team just participated at the Asian Games for the first time so it is a success and of course and for the good of the players,” he said.
