Brave effort by Fatema in swimming

Manama : Fatema Al Mahmeed swam bravely last night after she made her Olympic debut in the women’s 50 metres freestyle swimming at the Olympic Aquatics Centre in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, while Mahmood Ali Haji bowed out in the qualifying round of the Shooting 50 Metre Rifle Prone and Abraham Kipchirchir Rotich was disqualified in the men’s 800 metres owing to Lane infringement.

 Al Mahmeed a 16-year old Grade 11 Ibn Khuldoon National School student finished second in her heat and despite being eliminated she had the consolation of clocking a personal best time of 32.28 seconds over the distance and more importantly gaining valuable experience
for the future.

The heat winner was Ei Ei Thet of Myanmar who finished in 30.25 seconds,with third going to Nada Al Bedwawi (UAE, 33.42) and fourth Bunturable Effuah Jalloh (Sierre Leone, 39.93).

Al Mahmeed was ranked 74th of 91 swimmers from the 12 heats with the three fastest being Pernille Blume (Denmark, 24.23), Francesca Halsall (Great Britain, 24.26) and Aliaksandra Herasimenia (Belarus, 24.42) irespectively, while 23 of the swimmers swam under 25 seconds as 16 advanced to the semi-finals.

In the Shooting, 25-year old Mahmood Ali Haji scored a total of 612.6 points to finish 46th of 47 shooters at the National Shooting Centre, finishing ahead of Sri Lanka’s Mangala Samarakoon who finished on 601.8.

The top eight to qualify for the final later yesterday were – Sergey Kamenskiy (Russia, 629.0) with a new Olympic record, followed by Kiril Grigoryan (Russia, 628.9), Kim Jong-hyun (South Korea, 628.1), Vitali Bubnovich (Belarus, 626.2), Marco De Nicolo (Italy, 626.0), Niccolo Campriani (Italy, 625.3), Attopon Uea-aree (Thailand, 625.3) and Henri Junghaenel (Germany, 624.8).

There was huge disappointment for 22-year old Abraham Kipchirchir Rotich in the men’s 800 metres as he failed to qualify after finishing fifth in heat 1 of seven in a time of 1 minute 46.80 seconds and then his result was annulled and disqualified for breaking race regulations.

In a fast heat, the top four ahead of Rotich all qualified for the semi-finals and were Ayanleh Souleiman (Djibouti, 1:45.48), Amel Tuka (Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1:45.72), Boris Berian (US, 1:45.87) and Kleberson Davide (Brazil, 1:46.14) respectively, while the gold medallist at London 2012 David Rudisha of Kenya was fastest overall in 1 minute 45.09 seconds.