CAIRO, 24 November 2007 — Saudi Arabia won their third gold medal in athletics yesterday courtesy of their relay team and Hamid Al-Beshi looked set to add another medal to their collection after qualifying for the 200 meters final today in the 11th Pan Arab Games in Egypt.
The 4X100m relay team of Moussa Hawsawi, Yahya Gahis, Salim Al-Yami and Yahya Habeeb who stormed home in 39.99 seconds to clinch the gold for the Kingdom.
Oman got the silver medal in 40.12 seconds, and Qatar the bronze in 40.14 seconds.
It was the third gold for the Saudi athletics team after Mohammed Al-Khuwailidi won the long jump on Wednesday and Sultan Al-Dawoudi the discus throw on Thursday.
The Saudi delegation yesterday celebrated the victory of Al-Dawoudi and the bronze medal finish of Mohammed Al-Salihi in the 800 meters at the awarding ceremony.
Saad Shaddad, former Saudi champion and coach, expressed disappointment at the performance of his protégé Ali Al-Amri in the 3,000m steeplechase. Al-Amri finished the race dead last.
“He is an athlete who qualified for the World Championships. This is for sure not his performance. He was trained in Taif considering it a perfect place for athlete to train due to its atmosphere and fully equipped King Fahd Sport City. However in this event he was a bit shaken after seeing the performance of the other athletes that was way advanced such as the Qatari and Bahrainis.
We were supposed to train him abroad but we had no chance due to some of his family obligations.”
The coach added our second step now is to prepare him mentally during these 10 months to overcome this failure and look up to the Beijing Olympics 2008 to present himself with an honorable image.”
On the last day of the athletics competition today the Saudis are seeing action in five events namely 400 meters hurdles, 200 meters, 1, 500 meters, 4X 400m relay and high jump final.
Meanwhile, the Saudi cycling national team could only place fourth in the team event on Thursday. The bowlers also failed to add to their trio event bronze medal when they came fourth in the team event.
