It was a mixed day for Qatari athletes at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Portland yesterday.
On the penultimate day of the four-day championships, Qatar’s 19-year-old Abdalelah Haroun, who on Saturday had become the youngest ever 400m finalist, won a creditable silver in the event to become the youngest ever medallist in the history of the championships.
Haroun took the silver in 45.59 seconds, behind defending champion Pavel Maslak of the Czech Republic (45.44), and ahead of bronze winner Deon Lendore of Trinidad and Tobago (46.17).
Maslak became the third man in the history of the championships—and the first one in 10 years—to successfully defend a World Indoor 400m title.
Lendore, meanwhile, became only the second man from Trinidad and Tobago to win an individual World Indoor medal, 27 years after Ian Morris took silver, also in the 400m.
In the men’s 800m, Qatar’s Musaeb Abdulrahman Balla finished a distant sixth among seven competitors with a rather poor timing of 1:48.31, way below his personal best (indoors) of 1:45.48, which he set in February last year in Stockholm.
The 27-year-old’s personal best outdoors stands at 1:43.82, also set in 2015.
In men’s high-jump, defending champion and favourite Mutaz Essa Barshim finished fourth with a best jump of 2.29m, rather poor by his lofty standards. The Qatari pulled up on his second attempt with a slight cramp and opted to take his final available attempt at 2.36m.