Incheon, South Korea: Qatar have ‘shot’ up to 11th from 17th position on Asian Games medals table after another fruitful day in Incheon yesterday when they bagged a gold and bronze each to take their tally to three.
Thursday’s historic gold medal in the men’s team double trap competition was supposed to motivate Qatar’s squad to greater heights, and it served its purpose as expected with Oleg Engachev winning the men’s 25m centre fire pistol title in a tough contest at the Ongnyeon International Shooting Range.
Qatar’s women then proved they are not too far behind with the trio of Amal Mohamed, Saaida Humaid and Anisa Saleh Juma clinching bronze in the 10m running target team finals with a cumulative total of 1073.
China’s Li Xue Yan, Yang Zeng and Su Li won the gold with a total of 1148, while the Vietnamese trio of Hang Nguyen, Ha Hong Dang and Quyen Nguyen claimed the silver with 1106.
Like on Thursday when Rashid Al Athba, Masoud Al Athba and Hamad Al Marri had claimed the gold medal in the double trap team competition by virtue of their higher final round scores, there was an element of luck involved Engachev’s gold medal too.
Engachev, who had fared pretty poorly in the qualifiers of several other categories in Incheon, shot 585 in the 25m centre fire pistol, an event that is not very popular because of its exclusion from the Olympic Games.
Yesterday after three rounds of rapid as well as precision shooting, Engachev found himself tied with China’s Jin Yongde with 585 hits each. The Qatari, however, was declared the winner because he had 23 shots in the inner circle while the Chinese favourite could only manage 21.
Singapore’s Gai Bin took the bronze with a total of 584, highlighting the tough nature of the competition.
Engachev was delighted after winning the gold medal. A late bloomer, he took to shooting only when he was 18 years old and at the ripe old age of 47 he became one of the oldest champions in Asian Games history.
The Russain-born Engachev, however, was dismissive of the age factor.
“Who says older people can’t shoot, I just did and won a gold medal,” Engachev said. “Shooting is not like many of the other sports where you have to be in your twenties to be successful. In shooting you have to do well on a particular day and that is what counts,” he added.
Engachev said he won’t be resting on his rather late laurels.
“I will continue shooting and hope to win more glory for Qatar in the future.”
Meanwhile, Qatar’s women troika were also brimming with confidence after their bronze medal win in the 10m running target team finals in which each participant is given 400 targets – of which 200 are fast moving and 200 slow.
“It was an exciting competition and we are happy to have won the bronze medal,” said Amal Mohamed, who was also part of Qatar’s bronze winning team in the same event at the Doha Asian Games in 2006 along with Anisa Saleh Juma.
The Doha Asian Games bronze winning team also included Anisa Saleh Juma’s sister, Samsam.
Qatar can expect to win at least of a couple of more medals in shooting with the skeet events scheduled to begin tomorrow.
Olympic bronze winner Nasser Saleh Al Attiyah, who is also a champion rally driver with numerous titles to his credit, had arrived in Incheon and will be taking part in the skeet qualification tomorrow.QOC
