Get your flaGs out,
With team UAE set for Rio showdown, Khaleej Times analyses the team, their strengths and medal chances
When the UAE’s skeet shooting veteran and fivetime Olympian, Shaikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, marches into the Maracana Stadium on August 5 night (Rio time which is seven hours behind UAE time) in Rio de Janeiro with the national Olympic squad, it will signal another opportunity for the nation to compete against the very best of talent and skill.
As of now, the UAE will be represented by 13 sportspersons who have undergone rigorous training over the past one year. Also included in the athletics squad are 1,500m runner Saoud Zaadi, and Belina B., the candidate likely to replace the injured Bethlem Desalegn. Both runners will enter as wild cards.
In athletics, the UAE have a strong case as Alia Saeed Mohammed (10,000m) looks set to finish well at the Maracana main arena in Rio de Janeiro. She qualified for the Rio Summer Olympics before going into a 10,000m international one-off event in Dubai recently. She had set a national record time of 31:51.86 minutes at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, and rewrote the national mark at 31.09.77 during the Dubai run. Alia’s 10,000m appearance at the Olympics this time will be on the opening day (August 12) of the track and field programme.
Alia, the most consistent performer in the 10,000m in the continent in recent years, is also gaining form during the training period in Europe, and the UAE can expect top fare from this athlete.
Latest qualifier
The latest proper qualifier for the UAE in the Olympics is weightlifter Aisha Balushi who made the grade with a top spot finish in the women’s 58kg category in the recent international weightlifting championships in Hanoi. Her total count after the final rounds pushed her more established opponents from the hosts Vietnam, and India, into the silver and bronze positions.
Yaqoub Al Saadi (men’s 100m backstroke-swimming) and Nada Al Bedwawi (women’s 50m freestyle-swimming) will find themselves accompanying the rest of the contingent under the universality clause of the International Olympic Committee which is meant to encourage home grown talent.
UAE road cycling specialist Yousif Mirza made the grade thanks to his silver medal performance at the Asian Cycling Championships in 2015 where he achieved the final 200 points required for a ticket to Brazil. Al Nasr Club’s Mirza, who was involved in a bike accident in Jumeirah early last season, has recovered well, and looks certain to maintain the form he has been showing lately, the Dubai Tour timings this year being noteworthy.
The national shooters — Shaikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Khalid Al Kabi and Saif bin Futtais — booked places by virtue of their best finishes at the 2014 and 2015 ISSF World Championships, the 2015 ISSF World Cup Series, and the Asian Championships.
The UAE failed to win a medal at the London Olympics where the UAE soccer team made its debut in the Games. It must be kept in mind that Shaikh Ahmed Hasher Al Maktoum, double trap shooter, won gold — the UAE’s only medal in Olympic history, at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
For Shaikh Saeed, a former gold medallist at the world cup and Asian meets, this will be his fifth straight Olympics, a record by itself on many counts. Coached by Shaikh Ahmed, Al Kaabi went through a tough grind before qualifying for the Rio extravaganza.
Al Kaabi, inexperienced compared to the top shooters in the world, took up the sport hardly three years ago. He made it to the Olympics by winning the double trap gold at the Asian Shooting Qualifiers in New Delhi earlier this year, ahead of Kuwait’s Fehaid Al Deehani, a bronze medal winner at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and the 2012 London Games.
The Asian Shooting Qualifiers in New Delhi in February proved to be a good hunting ground for the marksmen from the UAE. Apart from Shaikh Saeed, two-time ISSF World Cup medallist, Saif bin Futtais pocketed the men’s skeet gold in the New Delhi meet, which was the final Asian qualification phase for the sport in the continent.
Victor Scvortov, Sergiu Toma and Ivan Remarenco will be the main hopes in judo, a relatively new sport here and one where the UAE will be making their second appearance after the London Olympics where Toma took part. Scvortov is rated 14 in world rankings; Toma won gold medal at a recent Tashkent tournament, while Remarenco won bronze at a world meet last season.
moni@khaleejtimes.com