AlKass Digital
Doha, Qatar- Qatar dominated on the second day of the 14th Arab Shooting Championship by clinching three gold medals in skeet with former Asian Games gold medallist Masoud Saleh Hamad pocketing a double at the Losail Shooting Range on Monday.
The 45-year-old, won the individual event and later on team up to win the team gold in the skeet event for Qatar. The third gold for Qatar came in the women's team event while Reem Al Sharshani of Qatar missed the gold by a whisker in the women's individual event.
On Monday, Masoud of Qatar, who made his comeback to competitive skeet shooting three months after keeping away from his favouritie sport for two years hit the eagle eye with two gold medals.
The men's individual skeet has some star-studded field shooters, including London Olympic Games bronze medal winner Nasser bin Saleh Al Attiyah, Asia champion Abdullah Alrashidi from Kuwait and World Cup bronze medallist Saud Habib of Kuwait.
Masoud, who had stopped the sport due to his office responsibilities, joined the action again in August and managed a lowly 23rd place in the Asian Championship in Kuwait City. However, in his very second competition in Losail yesterday, he displayed his vintage poise in the finals, clinching a thrilling gold medal match against Kuwait's Habib, winning the contest 54-53.
It was a golden day for Qatar as the hosts clinched three gold medals but Kuwait's Eman Alshamaa prevented a clean sweep of the skeet titles when he performed superbly in the final to bag the title at the expense of Qatar's Al Sharshani.
Masoud survived a three-way shoot-off to make it to the top six after getting locked with Habib and Abdulaziz Al Attiyah, younger brother of Nasser, at 116 each. From there he continued his surge. When the last 10 shots were left to decide the champion, he was one target ahead of Habib.
Hamad maintained pressure on the 2016 Asian championship silver winner from Kuwaiti and led 51-49 after six more hits. Habib struck all the last four to get to 53. But there was a bit of drama when Hamad failed once in his first two shots. But he controlled himself admirably and fired both the final targets to emerge the champion to a warm round of applause.
A delighted Hamad said: “I'm very happy with this victory. I just returned to the range after two years. I was away from it due to my office. But I started training again and contested in the Asian championship in Kuwait, which was my first event on my comeback journey.
“I'm really thrilled to have won this high-quality event," he added. “I'm quite confident now and will work hard towards getting a place in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games," Hamad said.
Rashid Saleh Hamad was pleased with the team's gold and individual bronze medal. “It was a tough competition. The strong winds made it even tougher. But I managed to get two medals. I have lots of local and international competitions lined up and I will be putting in my best to ensure my entry into the third Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020."