IN PICS: How Team UAE fared at Rio 2016

Reem Abulleil - Reporter/Sub-editor 23:42 16/08/2016
Each of the 13 UAE athletes.

Saud Al Zaabi’s exit from the 1,500m heats on Tuesday closed the curtain on the UAE’s participation at the Rio 2016 Olympics.

Al Zaabi, 28, was last in his heat of 13 runners, clocking 4:02.35 to cross the finish line over 17 seconds slower than 12th-placed Santino Kenyi.

This was the first time that Al Zaabi represented the UAE at a non-police-related international competition.

The Abu Dhabi Police employee is an 800m specialist but was selected by the UAE Athletics Federation to take the allotted wildcard entry given to the country by the IOC and IAAF.

Following Al Zaabi’s exit in the heats, the UAE delegation leaves Rio with varying degrees of success.

Naturalised Moldovan Sergiu Toma claimed the nation’s second-ever Olympic medal – and first since 2004 –with a bronze in the under-81kg judo competition. Team-mate Ivan Remarenco bowed out of the 100kg tournament in the opening round and Victor Scvortov was eliminated at the round of 16 in the 73kg judo.

Distance runner Alia Saeed finished a modest 23rd in the 10,000m race while her fellow Ethiopian-born Emirati, Betlhem Desalegn Belayneh, did not start her 1,500m heat due to a hamstring injury.

Shooters Sheikh Saeed Al Maktoum and Saif bin Futtais, finished 17th and 29th respectively in the skeet qualification round, while Khaled Al Kaabi was an impressive ninth in double trap qualification before ending just one target short of making the semi-finals.

Eslewhere, flag-bearer Nada Al Bedwawi became the UAE’s first female Olympic swimmer after participating in the 50m freestyle heats, while fellow history maker Ayesha Al Balooshi ended up finishing seventh in the women’s 58kg weightlifting.

In cycling, the country’s first rider to take part in the Olympics road race, Yousif Mirza, was forced to abandon the competition due to a crash that blocked his path. Finally, swimmer Yaaqoub Al Saadi exited the 100m backstroke in the heats, placing 37th.

The secretary general of the General Authority of Youth and Sports Welfare Ibrahim Abdul Malik admitted that more needs to be done in order to groom Olympic champions from the UAE ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Games.

“We need to have a clear vision for preparation starting right now,” said Abdul Malik.

“Federations have no resources sufficient to groom Olympic champions over four years. We have to turn our focus to individual sports and reshape the Olympic culture.

“We have the talent, resources and legislations to make this happen, though it is still extremely difficult.

“The three stakeholders – the government, the authority and the UAE National Olympic Committee – have to provide the human and financial resources as well as the infrastructure.

“We have to recruit the best coaches, and construct an Olympic centre because right now, the only solution is to send our athletes overseas for camps which are very costly. What we do now is nothing more than personal initiatives.”

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