Bahrain strike Arab cross country gold!
TDT | Manama
The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
Bahrain were crowned undisputed champions yesterday in the senior women’s and senior men’s races while claiming an outstanding 11 medals in all, including five gold, at the 25th Arab Cross Country Championship, held yesterday in Cairo.
The event featured more than 200 athletes representing 13 Arab nations from Asia and Africa.
The competing teams included Oman, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Palestine, Somalia, the UAE, Sudan, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Yemen, Bahrain and hosts Egypt.
Bahrain’s senior women’s and men’s squads captured their respective titles in their 10-kilometre races. Aside from Bahrain’s five gold medals, the nationals also won three silver medals and three bronze medals.
The senior women were led by star athlete and individual gold-medallist Winfred Yavi, who completed their race distance in 32 minutes 24.00 seconds.
Violah Jepchumba followed as the silver-medallist in 32:50.20, while Bontu Edao completed the Bahrainis’ sweep of the podium places with the bronze in 33:35.50.
Together with their other teammates in the race, the Bahraini women were dominant in claiming gold. The men followed suit and also claimed all three individual medals in their own race.
Albert Rop was the gold-medallist, finishing in a time of 29:31.80.
Countryman Abraham Cheroben came away with the silver after coming a close second in 29:33.40, while Birhanu Balew completed the top three with bronze in 29:57.50.
Their fine performances also helped the Bahrainis comfortably capture the senior men’s team gold in the race.
Meanwhile, Bahrain’s other individual gold medal was won by Abdikani Hamid in the eight-km junior men’s race.
Hamid powered to first place in a time of 23:58.30 and was followed by fellow-Bahraini Hamse Badi, who claimed silver in 24:30.30.
Their one-two finish was enough to help Bahrain win the junior men’s team bronze medals, completing their haul in this year’s championship.
Yesterday’s event was organised by the Arab Athletics Association.
It was the second successive year that Bahrain’s national team dominated the championship.
Last year’s meeting took place in the Kingdom, and Bahrain came away with 14 medals then.
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