QATARI TEAM RANKED THIRD IN WORLD HALF MARATHON CHAMPIONSHIPS AND EMBRACED INDIVIDUAL BRONZE MEDAL

Qatar’s athletics achieved a new victory in the half-marathon event. The Qatari athletics stars successfully guaranteed Qatar the third rank, in final teams ranking order, and a bronze medal in terms of individual finals during men's world half marathon championship held in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro on Sunday October 12, 2008. Qatar’s team managed to finish the race by clocking 3:10:52. It is worth notice that, according to IAAF rules, the results are to be calculated as achieved by the best three participating athletes from each team, where Qatar participated through five athletes among whom three scorers counted.  The Kenyan team seized the title of the half-marathon championships (3:07:24), while the second rank was dominated by Eritrea (3:09:40).

Ahmad Hassan Abdullah of Qatar was the third among individual results achieved and managed to seize the bronze medal to Qatar (1:01:57) following his closest challenger Patrick Makau Musyoki of Kenya who seized silver (1:01:54). Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea won the title of the championships and broke the one-hour mark for the 21-kilometer distance as he finished in a time of 59 minutes and 56 seconds.  

Qatari athletes’ results came as shown below:

§        Eisa Ismael Rashid, 10th rank, 1:03:57

§        Ali Dawod Sidam, 19th rank,  1:04:58

§        Sultan Khamis Zaman, 36th rank, 1:06:50

§        Philips Kibori, 40th rank, 1:07: 10

The Rio de Janeiro edition of the world half-marathon championships witnessed the participation of 90 athletes who represented 30 countries. In terms of teams, 16 countries participated and their final ranking order came as given below: