Incheon, South Korea: Mohamed Al Garni’s spectacular 5,000m gold apart, Qatar had a disappointing day in other sports at the Asian Games yesterday.
Qatar’s basketball and volleyball teams suffered their first defeats, while their shooters, table tennis players also fared poorly.
In volleyball, Qatar were outclassed in three straight sets by hosts South Korea who won 25-22, 25-19, 25-22 in one hour and 25 minutes.
Jeon Kwangin led the South Korean blitz with nine spikes followed by Park Chulwoo and Park Sangha with five each.
For Qatar, Hammad Mubarak excelled with 10 points, while Ibrahim Ibrahim had six.
The basketball team, meanwhile, fell to a shock defeat to Kazakhstan, the Central Asians posting a comfortable 65-57 victory in their quarter-final round robin league match.
After beating the Philippines in their opening match of the decisive round and before that Japan and Kuwait in the preliminaries, Qatar failed to take advantage of their 28-23 lead at the end of the second quarter to fall behind later and concede the match.
The Kazakhs went into the final quarter holding a healthy 48-42 lead and never allowed the Qataris to bounce back by defending stoutly and scoring with breakaway moves.
Dmitriy Gavrilov top scored for either side with 22 points which included two three-pointers, while Anatoliy Kolesnikov made a valuable contribution of 17.
Daoud Mousa once again led the scoring for Qatar with 16 points, while Mohamed Hassan was second best with 14.
Qatar will take on South Korea today in their final match of the quarter-final league, while Kazakhstan meet the Philippines.
Meanwhile, in the 10m men’s running target mixed competition, Qatar’s Mohamed Amin Haq, Mohamed Abuteama and Khalid Al Kuwari finished 16th, 17th and 18th.
In the 50m rife three positions, Qatar’s Viacheslav Skoromnov could only manage the 14th position in qualifying.
In the men’s 10m running target team event, Qatar finished sixth out of as many teams in the competition.
In table tennis, Qatar were beaten 2-1 in the men’s team competition, while the women crashed to a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Singapore.
In cycling, Qatar’s Abdulrahman Jarboua ended up in 16th position in the time trial.
QOC
