Today's Edition
Kuumar Shyam (Aletihad)
The UAE has opened their account at the fourth Asian Paralympic Games by picking up one gold medal and two silvers in Hangzhou, China, on Tuesday. Mohammed Al Hammadi, Thekra Al Kaabi and Saif Al Dhaheri were those on the podium.
Al Hammadi continued his domination in wheelchair racing in the region with the 800-metre event (T34) gold at the Huanglong track. He completed the distance in 1:38:10 minutes, followed by the Chinese pair of Wenhao Gong and Yang Wang.
“At major events like this, we do not represent ourselves, but we represent the Emirates, and our ambition must commensurate with the status of our country,” said Al Hammadi, who trained for month and a half in Thailand going into the event.
Starting from lane five in the final, Al Hammadi smashed his own record in 2018 to qualify for the 2024 Paris Paralympics. He owned the event at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, the 2019 World Championships in Dubai and also at the Asian Para Games in Jakarta, when he registered the previous record of 2:00.30 minutes.
Al Kaabi was the first medal winner of the tournament earlier in the women’s club throw event (F32). She threw the wooden club to a highest distance of 21.26 metres, well short of the 22.88m by the eventual gold winner Parastoo Habibi of Iran, a Games record.
Al Kaabi finished with a total of 857 points behind Habibi’s 934 points while India’s Ekta Bhayan came in third with 832 points.
After gaining experience at international meets in Hannover and Lima, shooter Saif Al Dhaheri did well for the second silver for UAE, but he narrowly missed out amid a tough competition at the Fuyang Yinhu shooting range. His best score of 249.8 was secondary to Thailand’s Anuson Chaichamnan, who set a new Asian Para Games record with 251.7 points. The third best was only 228.7 from Cheol-jae Lee of South Korea.
