(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) Oman finished a creditable third in the open category of the 23rd GCC Swimming Championship, organised by the Oman Swimming Association (OSA), at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex from October 27-30.
Oman garnered 17 open category medals (one gold, seven silver and nine bronze) behind first-placed Kuwait (23 medals - 14 gold, five silver, four bronze) and runner-up Qatar (14 medals - four gold, four silver and six bronze).
Also, Oman finished third in the overall medals tally, including the open and age-group categories in the swimming and diving competitions.
The hosts bagged 38 medals (four gold, 13 silver, 21 bronze); Kuwait finished on top with 51 medals (18 gold, 18 silver,15 bronze), while Qatar came in second with 32 medals (12 gold, ten silver, ten bronze).
Oman took second place in the open category of the diving competition with three medals (one gold, two bronze) behind Kuwait with three medals (two gold, three silver).
Qatar finished third with just a bronze medal.
In the age-group category diving competition, Oman finished third with five bronze medals, with Kuwait once again finishing on top with five medals (two gold, three silver), while Qatar took second place with six medals (two silver, four bronze).
Aiman al Kulaibi gave Oman its only gold in the open category in the 200m backstroke. He finished in 2m9.55s. The silver went to Kuwait's Salman al Jaber Mandani (2m12.93s) and the bronze was won by UAE's Yaqoob al Saadi (2m13.70s).
The two gold medals in the age-group category swimming event were picked up by Issa al Adawi and Abdulrahim al Kulaibi on the final day of the competitions.
Issa won the 100m freestyle junior class event ahead of Qatar's Abdulrahman al Qwari, who took silver, and bronze winner Abdul Razak Fahad of Kuwait.
Abdulrahim took gold in the 200m individual medley in the youth category, beating Kuwait's Jaraha Bakhit, who took silver, and Qatar's Omar Hisham, who took bronze.
The only gold in the diving competition went to Salim al Masroori, who repeated his performance from last year's event in Kuwait, topping the 7.5m platform diving event in the age-group category.
Salim also won a bronze in 1m springboard and his teammate Amer al Asri won bronze in 3m springboard. In the open category, the Shibli siblings, Ahmed and Nasser, won bronze medals for the sultanate.
Qais al Zakhwani, the OSA's general secretary, told Muscat Daily, said, ''It has been quite a commendable performance from the Omani contingent. We organised this event after a long gap of 16 years and we are satisfied with how it went off.''
But not everyone at the OSA is entirely happy with Oman's performance at the meet. Abdul Munim al Alawi, the OSA's board member, said, ''We should definitely have won more medals. We had home advantage, but unfortunately, we finished only third. I think we need to rethink our future strategy.''<
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.