Abubaker Hayder Abdalla has bagged the honour of becoming the first Qatari athlete to qualify for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo following his performance in the Doha Diamond League meeting on Friday.
The 22-year-old clocked 1min44.82secs in the 800m on Friday, easily surpassing the qualifying time of 1:45.20 seconds set by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) in March.
According to the qualifying standards announced by the IAAF, male athletes specialising in the 800m must clock 1:45.20 or better during the period between May 1, 2019 and June 29, 2020.
Abubaker had clocked 1:44.33 on way to the gold medal at the Asian Athletics Championships, but that was in April and hence not counted for Olympic qualification. He finished a creditable fourth on Friday in Doha in the 800m which was won by Botswana’s Nijel Amos in1:44.29.
Other Qatari athletes expected to qualify for the Olympics are world high jump champion Mutaz Barshim, 400m hurdler Abderrehman Samba and 200m specialist Abdelelah Haroun.
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