JEDDAH, 31 July 2007 — The Saudi national athletics team brought home five gold medals from their campaign in the 17th Asian Athletics Championship held in Amman, Jordan from July 25-29 at the Amman International Stadium.
The gold haul gave Saudi Arabia the third position in the competition behind overall champions China with 7-5-5 gold, silver, bronze medal tally and second-ranked India with 5-5-5. Qatar came in fourth with 4-8-5 tally.
The Saudi team’s victories came in the 1,500 meters, long jump, 3,000 meters, 800 meters, and the 4x100m relay.
The event attracted more than 500 athletes and 200 officials from 34 countries. The council meeting and congress of the Asian Amateur Athletics Association also took place in Amman during the event.
In the 16th championship in Incheon, South Korea in 2005, the Kingdom won four gold medals courtesy of Yahya Gahis (100 meters), Hamed Al-Bishi (200 meters), Hadi Souan (400m hurdles), and Ahmed Marzouq in (long jump) to go with one silver by Mukhallad Al-Otaibi in the 10,000 meters and bronze by the 4x400m relay team.
Mohammed Shawein drew first blood for Saudi Arabia topping the 1,500-m race in 3 minutes and 46.85 seconds on the first day. According to Shawein’s coach Saad Shaddad, the athlete has been showing a great deal of improvement this year especially during the training camp in Morocco before the event. He also qualified for the World Cup to be held in Osaka, Japan in August after placing sixth in the Grand Prix in 3:43.22.
Mohammad Al-Khuwalidi used the one day left in his vacation leave credits with his company Aramco to join the team on Tuesday night and return to the Eastern Province Friday with the long jump gold medal. One in a line of world beaters on the Saudi athletics team, Al-Khuwalidi leapt a distance of 8.18 meters to win the country’s second gold medal.
Three more golden efforts were to come with the relay team of Mohammed Al-Salihi, Ismael Al-Sibyani, Younis Al-Houssa and Mohammed Shawein winning the 4x100m race in a final day spurt for the 27-man Kingdom team.
The other gold medalists were Ali Al-Amri in the 3,000 meters and Mohammed Al-Salihi in the 800 meters where he clocked a winning time 1:51.73 to beat Iran’s Sajid Muradi and Abu Bakur Ali of Qatar, who posted 1:52.22 and 1:52.88 for second and third places respectively.
Sprinters Arab Champion of the Year Yahya Gahis and Doha Asian Games fastest man Yahya Habeeb missed out on the medals in the 100 meters as did hurdler Ali Al-Zaki in the 110 meters.
Doha Asian Games 400 meters gold medalist Hamdan Al-Bishi was unable to start due to injury and fellow 400m specialists Ibrahim Al-Sibyani and Younis Al-Houssa failed to advance past the preliminaries although two others, Idrees Hawasawi and Ismael Al-Sibyani, did make the final but missed a medal.
“It was not an easy competition but thanks to the training camp and friendly matches which enriched my experience I entered the game feeling more relaxed and managed to perform better than what I did in the 15th Asian Games,” said Al-Salihi. He also dedicated his medal to all the Saudi fans and thanked the president of the Saudi Athletics Federation Prince Nawaf ibn Mohammed and his coach Saad Al-Asmari for their support.
Shawein and Al-Salihi effectively became double gold medalists, as they were part of the victorious relay team.
