Heartbreak for Oman sailors as duo misses medal by a whisker

(MENAFN- Muscat Daily) It was heartbreak for Oman's Waleed al Kindi and Musab al Hadi as the duo missed an Asian Games sailing medal by a whisker, losing out to the Indian duo on countback after both the teams were tied with same net points following the conclusion of the 15th and final race in the 49er men's event on Friday.

The Omani pair went into the final race at an overall second place in the nine-team fleet event but nerves seemed to have got over them in the last race as they failed to repeat their good form on Wednesday and had to settle for fourth place.

Adding to their misery was the race win of the Indian duo of Varun Thakkar and Ganapathy Chengappa, a result that also pushed the Omani team off the podium. With both teams tied at 43 net points, the winner was decided on the number of wins in the 15 races.

While Oman had just two wins, achieved on Thursday, India had a total of five, including Friday's triumph, to finish third behind the gold-medal winning duo of Japan, Shingen Furuya and Shinji Hachiyama (39 points). The South Korean pair of Bonjin Chae and Dongwook Kim picked the silver with 42.5 points.

In the other sailing event that ended on Friday, Oman's Abdulmalik al Hinai settled for an overall ninth place among 23 sailors with 89 net points. Malaysia's Muhammed Fauzi Shah won the gold with 20 net points followed by China's Jianxiong Wang (42) and India's Harshita Tomar (62).

The failure of the Omani duo also concluded the sultanate's disappointing campaign at the Jakarta-Palembang Games as the sultanate's contingent returns empty-handed.

On Thursday, the men's hockey team finished seventh with a 5-2 win over Sri Lanka. Rashid al Fazari struck a brace while the other scorers were Muhanna al Hasani, Qasim al Shibli and Mahmood Ashoor.

Oman competed in eight events - athletics, swimming, shooting, tennis, beach volleyball, weightlifting, sailing and hockey. And the best performers turned out to be the duo of Kindi and Hadi along with Mohammed al Saadi's seventh-place finish in the 200m sprint race. Star

athlete Barakat al Harthi disappointed as he made his exit in the 100m semifinal in a photo-finish.

The beach volleyball duo of Nouh al Jalbubi and Mazin al Hashmi did well to reach the quarterfinals before losing to the bronze-medal winning duo of Indonesia – Gilang Ramadhan and Danangsyah Pribadi.

The rest of the athletes made early exits in their respective events though the young swimming duo of Issa al Adawi and Abdulrehman al Kulaibi recorded their personal best times in the 200m freestyle and 200m butterfly events respectively.

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