ATHLETICS – Bahrain’s reigning Olympic champion and former world champion Winfred Yavi will spearhead a full-strength athletics national team that will be going for gold at the 20th Asian Games taking place in Aichi and Nagoya, Japan, starting next month.
Yavi was announced yesterday by the Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) as part of the kingdom’s 34-athlete squad.
She is one of eight defending Asiad gold-medallists headlining the roster, with the others being ex-world champion Salwa Eid Naser, former world indoor champion Kemi Adekoya, Birhanu Balew, Eunice Chumba, Zenab Mahamat, Musa Isah, and Abbas Yusuf.
The track and field stars are widely regarded to be amongst Bahrain’s best bets to step onto the podium in this year’s Asian Games, which is set to feature 43 sports.
The athletics events are scheduled for September 23 to 29 at Nagoya’s 30,000-capacity Paloma Mizuho Stadium, which will also host the opening and closing ceremonies.
Yavi was champion in both the women’s 3,000 metres steeplechase and women’s 1,500m in the previous edition of the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China in 2022.
She is expected to compete in multiple events once again this year, as are Naser and Adekoya.
Naser and Adekoya both claimed gold medals in Hangzhou as part of Bahrain’s women’s 4x400m and mixed 4x400m relay teams, while Adekoya also captured gold in the women’s 400m – where she finished ahead of silver-medallist Naser – and the women’s 400m hurdles, making for a sensational haul of four gold.
Mahamat joined Naser and Adekoya in winning the women’s 4x400m relay, while Isah and Yusuf were the men’s sprinters in their mixed 4x400m relay triumph.
Chuma, meanwhile, won the women’s marathon gold medal in Hangzhou, while Balew struck a golden double in the men’s 5,000m and men’s 10,000m.
Also as part of the kingdom’s women’s athletes in this year’s Asian Games are sprinters Edidiong Odiong, Raihanah Garoubah, Aisha Abdulla, Hajar Alkhaldi, Layla Kamal, Sufian Abdulghani, and Zainab Ali; middle-distance specialists Nelly Jepkosgei and Tigest Mekonen; long-distance runners Shitaye Eshete and Ruth Jebet, who is also a former Olympic and Asian Games champion; and shot putter Noora Jasim.
Amongst the men, also set the fly the kingdom’s flag alongside Balew, Isah, and Yusuf are sprinters Abdulraof Rashed, Alaa Sami, Ali Haji, Ebrahim Simon, and Salem Bakheet; middle-distance runners Abdisamad Hirsi, Hamse Dhabar, and Zouhair Aouad; long-distance specialists Abdikani Hamid, Albert Kiptoo, Elhassan Elabbassi, and Shumi Gurmu; shot putter Abdelrahman Mahmoud, and high jumper Ahmed Sabri.
The kingdom’s athletics nationals are the latest members of Bahrain’s delegation announced by the BOC for the upcoming Asiad.
They join reigning Olympic champion, former world champion, and 2022 Asiad gold-medallist Akhmed Tazhudinov and Alibeg Alibego in men’s wrestling; Fatema Sadeq Kalawadh and Ola Abdulaziz Aldoseri in women’s taekwondo; Khalid Faraj and Abdulla Alshaikh in men’s jiu-jitsu; Adnan Ebrahim in men’s badminton; and Mohamed Hujairi, Fadhel Abdulla Taher, Hassan Khalil Ebrahim, Hussam Rashed Al Ansari, Mohammed Abdulnabi Darbas, and Yousef Abdulaziz Bahram in esports.
The 20th Asian Games are scheduled for September 19 to October 4, with more than 11,000 athletes from the Olympic Council of Asia’s (OCA) 45 member nations, both men and women, vying for the podium in 469 medal events across 43 sports.
This year’s Asiad will mark the 14th time Bahrain are participating in the quadrennial OCA spectacle.
The kingdom first competed in 1974 and have been a part of the Asian Games in each edition since.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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