Maryam set for Skeet Women’s Qualification

TDT | Manama

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Bahrain’s Maryam Hassani will be the Kingdom’s lone Olympian in action today at the Tokyo Games. Maryam is set to compete on the first day of Skeet Women’s Qualification at the Shotgun Ranges of Asaka Shooting Range.

The 27-year-old is set to be a part of the third of five squads, where she will be alongside Diana Bacosi of Italy, Iryna Malovichko of Ukraine, Sutiya Jiewchaloemmit of Thailand, Danka Bartekova of Slovakia, and Francisca Chadid Covetto of Chile. There are 29 women in total set to take part over two successive days of qualifying.

They are vying for six spots in the final round, which will also be held tomorrow. Maryam is a right-hander and her right eye is her master eye. She is currently ranked 77th in the world under the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF).

She has plenty of experience competing at the highest levels of global shooting, including the ISSF World Cup and the ISSF World Championships. Maryam also represented Bahrain at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, where she finished 16th in the women’s skeet event.

She was the mixed skeet gold-medallist at the Islamic Solidarity Games, held in Baku in 2017, alongside teammate Hasan Mohamed. In the sport of skeet shooting, participants use shotguns as they attempt to break clay targets mechanically flung into the air from two fixed stations at high speed, from a variety of angles. Maryam’s participation will mark the fifth straight Olympic Games in which Bahrain has taken part in the shooting.

In 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Mahmood Haji was the competitor, while in 2012 in London, Azza Al Qasmi represented Bahrain. Salman Zaman was the national team’s lone shooter at the 2008 Games in Beijing, and Khalid Mohamed took part in 2004 in Athens.