Grand double for Chen, gold for al-Mohannadi

Qatar bagged two more gold medals yesterday, but Egypt continued their Arab Games domination by taking their gold tally to 15. Zhu Chen and Ali Rashid al-Mohannadi provided Qatar with two more golds by winning the women’s rapid individual chess and men’s 50m rifle prone shooting event respectively to help the hosts stay second on the medals table.Egypt yesterday bagged five golds, three in archery and two in gymnastics, to assert their supremacy at the Arab level yet again.Chen in this process also completed a grand double. She had earlier won the women’s individual blitz gold as well.  “I’m really happy, in fact we now have three gold medals in the house from the Arab Games in Doha because my husband (Mohamad al-Modiahki) won gold in the men’s blitz event. But I’m sad for him today, that he didn’t win a medal in the rapid event,” said a pleased looking Chen.Al-Mohannadi held his nerve and rallied from a two-point deficit to win Qatar’s first individual shooting gold at the Lusail Shooting Complex.“This is a huge achievement for me. I had to get this gold medal of Qatar. I wanted to see the Qatari flag fluttering high,” said a jubilant al-Muhannadi.Jamal al-Sebbah of Bahrain was way ahead of the pack right from the qualification round until al-Mohannadi sneaked ahead with a perfect 10.9 with his sixth shot. He thereafter held on to his lead to win glory. Al-Sebbah missed out on the individual gold, although his team later went on to clinch the team event gold comprehensively with a 21-point margin. Qatari team comprising of al-Mohannadi, Ali al-Qahtani and Abdullah al-Maadeed went on to claim silver in the same event with 1,732 points. The bronze went to Saudi Arabia with a team total of 1,729. Qatar’s Rawdha al-Abdulla got the better of Rania el-Kilali of Morocco to win bronze in the women’s 48 kg Judo. Ali Ahmed Salem provided Qatar another bronze with a third place finish in the men’s individual recurve 70m Archery. Qatar bowlers after a forgettable day on Sunday, failed to get their act together in the team doubles event as well. The hosts had made a clean sweep of the gold medals in the previous edition but this time they were clearly struggling for form. The team of Yousef al-Jabir, Mubarak al-Muraikhi and Abdullah al-Jusaiman yesterday had to be content with the bronze. Kuwait and UAE won gold and silver respectively.Egypt’s dominance in gymnastics continued as Salma El Said and Aya Mahgoub took gold and bronze in the women’s all-around final at Aspire Dome yesterday.After capturing gold in the men’s team and a one-two in the men’s all-around earlier on Monday, Egypt’s gymnasts have now won every event so far here.Shaden Wohdan prevented a clean sweep by the North Africans as she snatched silver for Qatar in her home venue, coming from behind to beat US-based Mahgoub by 0.5 points at the death with a nerveless, graceful floor routine.