Curtain comes down on Arab Athletics Championships

The 18th Arab Athletics Championships came to an end at Suhaim bin Hamad Stadium of Qatar Sports Club on Friday. The tournament brought together 368 athletes from 17 countries including  Qatar, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Tunisia, Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Oman, Sudan and Djibouti. The Qatari athletes showed a widely-praised performance on the final day and added two more gold medals, a silver and a bronze on Friday. Musaeb Abdulrahman Balla dominated the men’s 800m from start to finish, winning a gold comfortably clocking 1:45.90 ahead of Ibrahim Utashi of Bahrain (1:46.52) and Abdulaziz Ladan Mohammed of Saudi Arabia (1:46.70). Later, Balla was also instrumental in providing Qatar with another medal, this time a silver with another scintillating run in the men’s 4x400m relay teaming up with Hassan Amman, Jamal Abdul Nasser, Jamal Heran. The gold was bagged by team Saudi Arabia while the bronze went to Algeria. Later in the evening, Rashid Shafi al-Dossari provided Qatar with the second gold by winning the men’s Discus Throw clearing 61.91m. The silver was claimed by al-Dossari’s compatriot Ahmed Mohammed Deeb with 60.46, while Musab al-Momani of Jordan went on to bag bronze with 60.13. The bronze for Qatar came in the men’s 400m hurdles, thanks to a spirited effort by Jamal Abdul Nasser (51.12). The gold went to Milood Rehmani of Algeria with 50.52, while Mohammed al-Sagir of Tunisia won bronze. Source: Qatar Olympic Committee