Qatar’s Bader clinches gold in javelin at the Islamic Games

Javelin thrower Ahmed Bader won second gold medal for Qatar at the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games Baku 2017 yesterday. High jumper Mahamet Allamine Hamdi also on the silver medal, while Li Ping picked up a table tennis men’s singles bronze to make it a successful day for Qatar.
The 21-year-old Bader hurled the javelin at 83.45m for his gold medal, while Ivan Zaytsev of Uzbekistan claimed silver with 78.66m throw. The bronze went to Pakistan’s Arshad Nadeem for his throw of 76.33m.
Bader is the first-ever Qatari to compete in the javelin throw at Olympic Games. His qualification for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games was remarkably his first-ever senior participation and he was the youngest competitor in the discipline. With this three medals yesterday, Qatar now has 10 medals in all, including two gold, one silver and six bronze. Azerbaijan lead the tally with 66 gold medals and Turkey is at the second spot with 61 gold.
Hamdi also hogged the limelight yesterday as he managed to win Qatar’s second silver of the Games with 2.2gm effort, his season’s best. He finished behind Syria’s Majd Eddin Ghazal, who scaled 2.28m for gold medal. Iran’s Keyvan Ghanbar Zadeh of claimed the bronze with 2.24m.
In the table tennis, Qatar’s Ping defeated Turkey’s Ahmet LI 4-1 (11-7, 11-6, 8-11, 11-2, 11- 7) in 29 minutes for the bronze medal. In the semi-finals, Ping lost to Iran’s Nima Alamian Darounkoalei in a keenly-fought 50m encounter 3-4 (7-11, 11-8, 7-11, 11-9, 11-6, 12-14, 81-11). Nima lost to his compatriot in Noshad Alamyan Deronkolaei in the gold match 3-4 (11-13, 11-7, 7-11, 11-8, 10-12, 16-14, 9-11).
In 3x3 basketball Qatar matched in to the quarter-finals. Yesterday, Qatar thrashed Jordan 21-8 and defeated Mali 20-11 to finish its Group B assignments without losing any match. Tnquv Ngombro scored match-high 11 points against Jordan, while Andulrehman Saad was the top scorer with 10 points against Mali. On the day one of the event, Qatar defeated Ivory Coast and Indonesia in its first two matches.
Qatar’s wild-card holder Mubarak Zayid entered the men’s tennis singles quarter-finals defeating Ahmed Abdul Razak of Malaysia 6-4, 5-7, 6-2 in second round match yesterday. Zayid won his first round match against Pakistan’s M Abid 7-5, 6-0.
Disabled javelin star Aleksandr Svechnikov of Uzbekistan was the toast of Baku, as the first world record tumbled by the local lad. Svechnikov, who was celebrating his 19th birthday yesterday, launched a monster throw of 70m in the men’s javelin F13 final to become the proud owner of the world’s best distance in the discipline.
It was a nice early present for the Uzbek, who notched up the record with his second throw and was able to watch on as his rivals tried in vain to catch him.
Iran’s Sajad Nikparast managed 59.24m to take silver while his compatriot Seyed Er Hosseini Liravi, the 2015 paralympic world championship silver medallist, completed the podium with an effort of 55.79m.