Saudi Sultan Al-Habashi, the Asian record holder, heaved the put to a distance of 20.57 meters to land the premier medal, relegating Chinese putter Zhang Jun to the silver. Jun failed to break the 20 meters barrier as his best was 19.59 meters. Taiwan's Chang Ming Huang, with 19.48 meters, finished third.
In the middle distance relay, the Saudi team showed clean exchanges and quick strides to set up a personal best in locking the 4x400 meters relay gold, bringing the Kingdom's tally to five golds, three silver and five bronze in the Games.
The quartet of Ismail Al-Sibyani, Mohammed Al-Salhi, Hamed Al-Bishi and Yousef Masrahi clocked 3min 02.30sec, to outstrip the Japanese (3:02.43) and Chinese (3:03.66) teams.
The Saudi handball team finished fourth after they lost their match against Japan 26-20 in a semifinal match. The Saudi team had played exceptionally well in the earlier rounds and hoped to place better, but due to injury to a number of players the team had to weather a resurgent Japan and lost the semis.
Majed Al-Khalifa too lost his match in karate competition in the under 84 kilos category to an Uzbek opponent.
Prince Nawaf bin Muhammad, chairman of the Saudi Athletics Federation, said that the athletes who have won medals in the Asian Games will be honored. "The performance was not as big as we expected but things will improve in the future. Next time we will have early preparation in order to compete favorably and gain more medals," the prince said.
He, however, added that the achievement of the Saudi team so far has been very satisfactory.
In addition to the two golds on Friday, Saudi Arabia clinched victories in the team and individual show jumping in equestrian and 1,500 meters in athletics.
