CAIRO, 20 November 2007 — Saudi Arabia won three medals including a gold from shooter Saeed Al-Mutairi yesterday in the 11th Pan Arab Games in Egypt.
The table tennis squad began the Kingdom medal hunt on the day by winning the bronze medal in the team event.
Next to fall on the Saudi lap was the skeet event gold in shooting courtesy of Al-Mutairi, who improved on his silver medal finish from the previous games.
Not to be outdone, the fencing team just missed another possible gold when they lost to host Egypt in the final and settled for the silver medal.
The day’s haul brought to 26 the number of medals the Kingdom won so far in the blue-riband competition that ends on Friday.
Al-Mutairi was overjoyed at his performance that put him in the roll of champions at last.
Riyadh Al-Rasheed, manager of the Kingdom shooting and archery teams, said the Saudis have been improving specially in these events. “You can always see the impressive results coming from them,” he said.” Though we participated in only five events from the archery and shooting we managed to make our country proud this time, he added.
Meanwhile, Saudi national team Secretary-General Mohammed Al-Hassan said his team is young with average age at 17, hence “we are really glad with their performance specially that some of them were first timers in this championship.” Mohammed Al-Jizani at 25 is the oldest member of the fencing team to win the silver. Fahad Al-Hamoud is 16 years old, while Ageel Al-Dawoud and Abdullah Al-Hello are both 17.
“It was not easy for them and beating all the team until they face Egypt in the final and getting the silver medal is really something to be proud of,” Al-Hassan said.
Elsewhere, the Saudi national equestrian team met strong opposition from the UAE, Qatar and Egypt teams in the endurance race. UAE led the seven hours competition which included five rounds followed by Qatar , Egypt , Syria and the Saudi Arabia. Saudi riders were in third place trying to keep pace with UAE and Egypt in the first three rounds, but then faded in the end. Nawaf Al-Otaibi, Hamad Al-Shammari, Abdullah Al-Bihayyan, Bader Al-Barq , and Prince Saud ibn Abdullah from Al-Mohammadiya stables, and Abdulrahman Al-Hawas, and Mohammed Al-Muhlasi from the Kingdom Holding Company of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bannered the Saudi team.
Khalid Al-Otaibi, Saudi team coach, said the team have had training two months ago in Portugal and in the Kingdom. They also gained experience at a European championship. “The road here was so rugged, the team experienced difficulties during the race and only Prince Saud ibn Khalid managed to finish the full 120km distance,” said Al-Otaibi.
He said Prince Abdullah ibn Fahd Al-Saud did not start and opted instead to be the team manager.
