Qatar’s Abdalelah Hassan Haroun (right) wins the second heat of the men’s 4x400m relay event during the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia, yesterday.
Doha: Qatar 4 x 400m relay team emerged as clear favourites to clinch a medal in today’s final after registering impressive results in the heats at the Asian Games event yesterday.
The Qatari quartet of Abderrahman Samba, Mohamed Abbas, Mohamed Mohamed and Abdalelah Hassan Haroun will aim to anchor the team to a top finish and add up to the medals tally.
The Qatari relay team clocked 3:06.08 in the qualifying round while Japan was in the second place followed by Bahrain, India and Sri Lanka in that order.
In the heats, Qatar lodged the best timing from among the 11 countries which competed in the heats at the GBK Main Stadium in Jakarta, yesterday.
Samba and Haroun, both will be looking to set new individual records against their name. Both of them have already bagged one gold against their names. In the 400m hurdles Samba won while Haroun won in 400m, and today both of them will be looking to clinch the relay gold to complete a golden double at the Games.
The hosts of the 2006 Games, Qatar have won 10 medals so far at the Games in Indonesia and will be aiming to cross the 14-medal mark they achieved at the last event in Incheon.
Meanwhile, Qatar will be looking for more medals in the 1,500 metres where two athletes have qualified for the final round. Hamza Driouch and Musaab Ali, both qualified for the final with a timing of 3:47.18 and 3:50.90 repetitively.
Elsewhere, sixth seed Qatar squash team went down fighting to Malaysia in the Pool B match.
With a fourth day of qualification action still to go, Hong Kong China, India and Malaysia are already guaranteed medals in both the men’s and women’s Squash events in the Asian Games Team Championships at the Gelora Bung Karno Sports Complex in Jakarta, Indonesia.
The men’s team of Malaysia did enough to secure a place in the semi-finals after beating Qatar. The third seeds dropped the first match after Nafiizwan Adnan went down in straight games to the Qatari number one Abdulla Al Tamimi - the fourth highest-ranked player in the event who has yet to lose a match in the team event.
It was sweet revenge for the 23-year-old from Doha who was denied a place in the individual event semis after losing to Adnan.
Rested after sustaining an injury in the individual event, world No.12 Saurav Ghosal made a welcome return for India and led the country’s second-seeded men’s team to a 3-0 win over Thailand - and a place in the semi-finals.
Qatar will also be seen in action in the men’s volleyball semi-finals taking on Iran while the men’s handball team have already qualified for the final and will meet Japan today.
In men’s volleyball quarter-finals on Tuesday, devastating Qatar saved incredible nine match points to stun Japan in a clash of the Titans to go up against title-holders Iran, as fired-up Korea cruised to gritty 3-0 victory over hosts Indonesia to challenge Chinese Taipei in today’s semi-finals at the GBK Tennis Indoor Stadium.
Japan and Qatar engaged in a fiery duel on Tuesday.
Both sides sent a strong team to the 18th Asian Games. As Japan are defending consecutive two-time Asian champions and silver medallists at the incheon Games, Qatar early this month captured the maiden AVC Cup for Men title.
The Qataris, who finished a disappointing 6th place in Incheon, Korea four years ago, started solidly to win the opening set 25-18 before Japan counter-attacked to take the hotly-contested second set 28-26.
Qatar, led by Mubarak Hammad and Ndir Sadikh, regained their composure to bring their brilliant form back on track to snatch the third set 25-21. In the fourth set, Qatar roared back after a slow start but went down 22-25.
In the tie-breaker, both sides came in full force, but Japan gradually pulled their game together with an aim of ending the tough rivals’ resistance. Still, the determined Qataris came up with a seismically powerful display, saving 9 match points to capture the see-saw set 24-22 and the exhausting 144-minute match.
Mubarak Hammad scored a match-high 31 points including 25 kills from 50 attempts and a team-leading 5 blocks. Shunsuke Chijiki led Japan with 25 points.
This is Qatar’s second time in history that they could make it to the top four teams in the Asia’s biggest sporting event. Their first time that they reached the semi-finals was in the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, where they finished fourth on home soil.
