Bahrain athletes bag three gold medals in Jordan

Manama, Oct. 31 (BNA): Bahrain’s athletes added another success to their ‘gold only’ theme in 2018 as the national triathlon team clinched three medals at the Third Aqaba ASTC Triathlon Asian Cup and West Asian Championship in Aqaba, Jordan. Sameera Al Bitar took the above-23 years category gold medal, with the under-19 team member Omar Hamza winning the spring race gold, while Mohammed Mubarak clinched the same event silver. Abdulrahman Mubarak was the other Bahraini athlete in the fray. The championship, started with a 750m single-lap swim, a 20-km bike race of 4 laps on closed roads, and concluded with a 5-km race of 2 laps, was organized by the Jordan Triathlon Association (JTA) and the race Local Organizing Committee (LOC). It featured a bigger prizemoney of $20,000 compared to last year’s event. Their achievement was highly admired by Supreme Council for Youth and Sports assistant secretary general and Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) secretary general Abdulrahman Askar, who met members of the team at the committee premises in Seef. Askar said he was pleased with the overall result of the Bahraini athletes, which he attributed to the support from the Bahrain sports leadership, headed by Shaikh Nasser bin Hamad Al Khalifa, representative of His Majesty the King for Charity Works and Youth Affairs, Supreme Council for Youth and Sports Chairman, and BOC President. He conveyed the congratulations of Shaikh Nasser to the team, praising their respective results, which reflects the improved level of triathlon in Bahrain and the attention paid to the activities organized by the national triathlon federation. Askar also noted the efforts of federation president Shaikh Saqer bin Salman Al Khalifa and his support to the team to prepare them for the championship. Askar said the victory of His Highness Shaikh Nasser at the recently-concluded World Ironman Championship in Kona, Hawaii, played a major part in the result achieved by members of the triathlon team in Aqaba. The BOC general secretary said the committee will spare no effort to support the triathlon federation and honor its heroes honorably, in accordance with the directives of the kingdom’s leadership and Shaikh Nasser.