Hairane wins gold as Qatar bag fifth medal in Ashgabat

The 2016 Asian Indoor Championships silver medallist, Jamal Hairane grabbed honours as he secured Qatar’s second gold medal at the Ashgabat 2017 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games.
The 24-year old athlete, who trailed for the better part of yesterday’s final, later picked up pace when it mattered the most to leave a shell-shocked Sri Lankan Indunil Herath in the second spot and Iranian Amir Moradi in third place as he surged past them in the last 50m to take gold in 1:49.33.
Later, Hairane and Qatar’s golden boy from Tuesday, Abdalelah Haroun teamed up with Mohamed Nasir Abbas and Ali Hassan Al Jassim in the men’s 4x400 metres relay team to secure the bronze in a  keenly  contested final.
Rashid Ahmed Al Mannai secured Al Annabi’s second bronze medal of the day when he leapt 15.99 metres in the men’s triple jump behind the gold medallist, India’s Arpinder Singh and Thailand’s Tepparak Pratchaya.
Kazakhstan topped the medals chart with six gold, one silver and three bronze medals as curtain came down on track and field events at the Indoor Athletics Arena yesterday evening. Next were India with five gold, two silver and one bronze.
Earlier, Qatar secured a bronze medal in men’s Taekwondo through Ali Juma Al Aaraimi who beat South Korea’s Kim Seyoung in the 80kg weight class. The Qatari martial artist lost to Iranian Erfan Nazemi in the semi-final and later, Nazemi went on to secure the gold medal when he beat China’s Chen Linglong in the final.
With two gold medals, a silver and two bronze, Qatar are currently placed 16th in the medals tally.
They also have high hopes from their 3x3 basketball team which is one of the favourites at the Ashgabat Games.
Qatar beat Samoa 21-11 in a Pool C game in the men’s 3x3 Basketball tournament at the 3x3 Basketball Arena. After the win, Qatari team member Abdulrahman Saad  said: “When you win, everything is fine. It happened and we feel good.
“Since we didn’t play together in the last months, our priority is to find our chemistry and play at our level. We will need one or two games to reach our level.”
“I like it here. Everything looks perfect so far. The venues, the people, the atmosphere. It is a very well organised event,” Saad commented on the Ashgabat 2017 Games.
Samoan cager Theodore McFarland was disappointed after losing to Qatar.
“I am disappointed because we made a lot of mistakes and when you do so against a strong opponent, you pay for them,” he said.
“We knew that Qatar are very good and they proved it. I think they can go all the way,” McFarland commented.