Bahrain begins medal hunt

Manama : Bahrain last night made its initial mark at the Fifth GCC Women’s Games in Doha, Qatar winning nine medals, including 2 gold, 5 silver and 2 bronze on the third day of the games. Salwa Nasser (54.35 seconds) gave Bahrain its maiden medal at the games, sprinting to a 400m victory at Qatar Club Stadium ahead of Oman’s Hana’a Al Qasmi (1:02.26) in second and Qatari Dalal Al Hareth (1:05.94) third. The day’s other competitions included 100m hurdles, high jump, javelin throw, 100m, pole vault, shot put and the 10,000m final. Maryam Nasser doubled Bahrain’s medal account, winning the 100m silver in 12.25 seconds, Mazon Al Halawiya (12.08) of Oman bagged the gold, while Bahrain’s other sprinter Zaynab Abdulhussain (12.56) secured the bronze. The fourth medal in athletics was won by Shitai Ashit (34 minutes and 8.97 seconds) to finish second in the 10,000m race as UAE’s Alya Saeed (34:00.02) took gold), while compatriot Sara Fraidooni (48:05.55) took the bronze. These results helped Oman top the athletics medal table with seven medals (3, gold, 2 silver, 2 bronze) and are followed by Qatar (2, gold, 4, silver, 2 bronze), UAE (2, gold, 2 bronze) in third and Bahrain (1 gold, 2 silver, 1 bronze) fourth. Bahrain’s shooting team added three more medals at Lusail Shooting Circuit, where they clinched the air pistol team gold medal. Aisha Al Buraiki took the singles air pistol silver, while the Bahrain air rifle team bagged the 50m team bronze. The fencing team rounded off the medal haul win of the day, taking home the epee and flores team events silver medals at Aspire Academy’s fencing hall. Earlier Bahrain registered their maiden victory in the volleyball tournament at Aspire Academy hall to keep their title hopes alive with a 3-1 (22-25, 25-23, 25-21, 25-22) come-from- behind win over Oman in their second game of their round robin tournament, to help Bahrain shrug off their disappointing straight-set defeat to the UAE on the first day and revive their title chances in the competition under coach Yasine Al Meel, who inflicted a second straight defeat on its opponent after losing their opener to Qatar. Bahrain suffered a second defeat in the handball championship at Aspire after losing its third game in the competition after going down 16-17 after trailing 7-10 at the half-time break. Meanwhile, the basketball, table tennis and taekwondo teams arrived in Doha yesterday and will be in action over the weekend.