Doha: Hosts Qatar finished with a bagful of medals as the 11th Arab Shooting Championships concluded at the Losail Shooting Range yesterday.
With 40 medals, including 12 golds, Qatar performed impressively to emerge as the overall champions in the event.
On the last day of the championship, Qatar failed to win any more gold medals but the men’s trap team won the silver. The junior boys won the team bronze to finish at the top of the table.
The Kuwait men, who finished second in the medals tally, hogged the limelight on the last day of the championship as they won all four gold medals at stake.
Kuwait’s Khalid Almudaf won the individual trap gold, defeating compatriot Abdul Rahman in the final while Algerian shooter Fouad Obeid clinched third place.
The championship drew 250 shooters from nine countries. Apart from hosts Qatar — Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Lebanon and Sudan took part in the event.
There were several highs for the hosts’ team as a number of shooters clinched gold medals during the championsip. Among the gold-medal winners for Qatar were the men’s double trap team, Sarah Mohamed in women’s skeet shooting and Matara Al Aseiri clinched the rifle prone gold. Amna Al Abdulla won the women’s trap shooting gold and Al Dana Al Mubarak won the 25m pistol event. Qatar also won the gold in 25m pistol event in the senior category.
The championship was contested in the junior section for both men and women.
Aisha Al Mutawa won silver in rifle prone for the hosts. Other silver medal winners were the women’s team in the 10m air rifle category. Saleh Masoud Hamad Al Athba took the silver in skeet shooting and Dana Suleman in the 25m pistol event.
The 39-year-old Saleh Masoud, a double gold medalist at the 2002 Busan Asian Games, clinched two silvers in individual and team event. The Qatari lost the gold medal shoot out to Kuwait’s Zaid Al Mutairi.
In the trap team women’s event, the trio of Amna Al Abdulla, Kholoud Al Khalaf and Nawal Abdulmalek clinched the silver for Qatar behind Morocco.
On Monday, Qatar’s women shooters won one gold and an equal number of silver and bronze medals. Qatar’s men’s team, comprising Riaz Khan, Zafer Al Qahatani and Adel Kahn, also claimed the 25m standard pistol bronze.
Amna Al Abdulla of Qatar fired 68 points in three rounds in the final to beat Kuwait’s Sarah Al Hawal by one point for the trap women’s gold.
THE PENINSULA
