TRIBUNE NEWS NETWORK

DOHA TWO gold medals in archery and one in bowling extended an encouraging show by Qatar in the Arab Games.

Ali Ahmed Salem and Abdulaziz al Obadi provided a bright start to Tuesday for the host and won the Men’s Individual Recurve 30m and Men’s Individual Compound 2x50m. Late into the day, Yousef al Jabir, Mansour al Hajri and Mubarak al Muraikhi bagged the Men’s Trios title in bowling to lift the home team to 12 gold medals.

In all, Tuesday fetched Qatar three gold medals, three silver medals and four bronze medals and kept it firmly in the second place behind Egypt.

There was a rich haul of 28 gold medals at stake today and the Egyptian juggernaut pressed hard ahead relentlessly.

They snatched 13 of the golds to finish with 28-19-14 haul.

Qatar follows the unquestionable leader with 12-9-13 for a total of 34 medals.

Tunisia consolidated its third place with a triple gold effort by weightlifter Saumaya Fatnassi to be third country with double-digit titles so far.

Mubarak, Yousef and Mansour took the total to 3675 to easily defeat Kuwaiti players by 183 pins. Mubarak was the best among the Qatari bowlers to average 210.5 in his series. Abdulla al Jusaiman, Salem al Marzouqi and Fahad al Emadi helped the host bag the bronze, being 220 pins adrift the champions.

Gymnast Shaden Wohdan added two more medals to the Qatari tally, winning a silver and a bronze.

Saudi Arabian Mohammed al Saeed and Egyptian archer Amira Mansour continued their hot battle to be the most decorated athlete of the games. While Saeed added two more golds to take his tally to six, including a silver, Amira was among the day’s best performer, claiming a golden treble. Her five-medal haul contains a bronze too.

She dedicated her medals to her family and the team. “I am as happy today as I was yesterday.

I am grateful for these medals to my mom and dad and the team,” said the young star.

Egypt sealed its domination in archer, which offered nine gold medals today. Apart from Amira’s triple, it bagged three more and the successful archers were Ibrahim Sabry, Ahmed Fakhry and Hady Elkholosy.

Tunisia’s Soumaya also caught the attention with her remarkable efforts in the 56kg class as the weightlifting began at the Al Dana Hall. She was outstanding in snatch (81kg), clean and jerk (90kg) and total 171 kg for a clean sweep.

In weightlifting, Oman’s Suhail al Kulaibi also came quite close to bringing off a golden treble. He won two golds in 56 kg clean & jerk and total. But he was beaten to the second place in the snatch by Saudi Arabian Mansour al Saleem.

Egypt also ended the longdrawn gold drought in the men’s team tennis. Its Sherif Hussein and Mohamed Mahmoud defeated the Kuwaiti rivals 2-0 to win the first team’s title in 46 years.

Long back in 1965, Egypt had won the team crown and since then, it was able to reach the final only once.

The Egyptian gymnasts were in the spotlight again, winning four apparatus finals at the Aspire Dome. Tunisian Wajdi Bouallegue bounced back from disappointment on Monday to take his first title.

Egypt’s all-around champions Mohamed Elsaharty and Salma el Said both added to their personal totals.

Risking a tough routine in an event that is not his speciality, Elsaharty bagged a bonus gold on pommel horse, his third of the Games, while Said won the uneven bars after her teammate Aya Mahgoub took the vault title.

Ali Zahran rounded off another great day for Egypt producing the performance of the day to win the rings.

Bouallegue, the 2007 Arab Games champion who failed to medal in Monday’s allaround final, adjusted his tactics to great effect with a highclass display to win the floor event. The Tunisian has been something of an Arabian legend since he became the first man from the region ever to win a World Cup gymnastics event in 2007.