ISLAMIC SOLIDARITY GAMES – Bahrain's Ingrid Vanesa Segura Grueso last night bagged the kingdom’s first gold medals of the sixth Islamic Solidarity Games, currently being held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Grueso was competing in the women’s under-69kg category in weightlifting, where she captured gold for clean and jerk and total.
She added a third medal with a snatch silver to complete a remarkable performance.
Her winnings brought Bahrain’s haul so far in the multi-sport meeting to six medals. They added to three already won in judo, which include one silver and two bronze.
Grueso began her campaign yesterday with a best effort of 106kg in the snatch portion. Her other attempts were 98kg and 102kg.
Taking the snatch gold was Islamiyat Adebukola Yusuf from Nigeria with a 110kg best effort, while bronze was claimed by Nuray Gungor from Türkiye with a 105kg lift.
Grueso then went on to win her first gold of the night with a best mark of 128kg in the clean and jerk, which came on her first try.
She also had two attempts to lift 131kg in this stage, but could not complete either. Despite this, her 128kg success was enough to secure first place.
Her gold medal-clinching clean and jerk lift was matched by Gungor, but Grueso claimed the top ranking being the first to register the mark.
Gungor had to settle for silver while Reihaneh Karimi from Iran clinched clean and jerk bronze with a 126kg effort.
Following both portions, Grueso secured the gold medal on total at 234kg. Gungor was the silver-medallist after finishing one kg behind, while Karimi was third at 221kg.
Following her competition, Grueso was joined in her post-event celebrations by officials from the Bahrain Olympic Committee and the Bahrain Weightlifting Federation.
Bahrain’s three judo medals were claimed by Israpil Sagaipov, Askerbii Gerbekov, and Ruslan Poltoratskii.
Sagaipov took his silver in the men’s under-90kg category, while Gerbekov and Poltoratskii won bronze medals in the under-81kg and under-60kg weight class, respectively.
Meanwhile, also yesterday, Bahrain’s senior men’s volleyball national team went down fighting against their heavily favoured opponents from Türkiye.
The Bahrainis battled hard and had their chances to triumph in each of the three sets, especially the second where they were on the verge of levelling the match with multiple set points.
But their opponents prevailed with timely kills en route to securing the 3-0 (25-22, 34-32, 25-22) win.
Mohammed Anan led Bahrain with 10 points, while Naser Anan and Mahmud Abdulwahed scored seven apiece.
Cansin Ogbai Enaboifo paced Türkiye in their victory with 14 points.
Bahrain will be looking to bounce back today when they face Chad at 4pm. They then complete their round-robin campaign tomorrow against Qatar, also at 4pm.
The top two teams on the standings will then move on to square off for the gold medals on Thursday, while the squads placed third and fourth will clash for bronze the same day.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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