Qatar’s Sheikh Ali bin Khalid al-Thani bagged the silver medal in the individual showjumping event at the Asian Games yesterday. The ace rider, who will celebrate his 37th birthday tomorrow, gave himself an early present at the Jakarta International Equestrian Park.
Going into yesterday’s final round, Sheikh Ali was in second position but was also firmly in contention for gold medal. Despite some magnificent performance with his nine-year-old stallion Sirocco in the two-round finals, Sheikh Ali had to settle for silver.
“Our goal was the gold medal but Alhamdulilah we got bronze in team event and silver in individual. We hope we do better in our upcoming competitions because Qatar deserves gold,” Sheikh Ali said.
Sheikh Ali has made a habit of producing impressive performances in the big events. He had finished in sixth spot in the individual jumping event at the 2016 Rio Olympics, while he led Qatar to ninth-place finish in the team event. He was also the flag bearer for Qatar in Rio.
This was Qatar’s second medal in the equestrian competition at the 18th Asian Games, after they had won bronze in the team event on Tuesday. Qatar’s team consisted of Sheikh Ali, Hamad al-Attiyah, Basem Mohamed and Salman al-Suwaidi.
Ali Alkhorafi won Kuwait’s third gold of the Asiad with a sublime ride in the course designed by Germany’s Werner Deeg. Alkhorafi and his horse Cheril produced a neat round, clearing all the hurdles to record the lowest faults at just 1.06 points. Sheikh Ali and Sirocco combined for 2.02 points.
Ramzy Hamad al-Duhami from Saudi Arabia and his horse Ted recorded a fault score of 5.00, after toppling a pole in the final round. Al-Duhami, who was leading going into the final round, incurred a penalty of 4 points, which meant he dropped to bronze medal position.
Other Qatari riders had a disappointing outing in the individual event — Basem (Argelith Squid) finished tied 38th, al-Attiyah (Clinton) was 40th and al-Suwaidi (Cantaro 32) was 45th.
The judges in the individual jumping final round were Khalil Ibrahim Murad Hassan (United Arab Emirates), Gerald Kuh (Hong Kong, China), Karim Badaro (Lebanon), Sergey Buikevich (Kazakhstan) and Kazuya Hirayama (Japan).
A staggering 68 competitors from 19 nations participated in the Jumping class. The number of nations has more than doubled from the
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