Incheon, South Korea: The UAE’s bowlers made a strong recovery in the men’s doubles, but failed to put themselves on the podium at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games here on Thursday.

After a slow start to the bowlng competition at the Anyang Hogye Gymnasium on Tuesday, when they missed out on men’s singles honours, the UAE pair of Hussain Al Suwaidi and Naif Oqab totaled a pinfall of 2,461 to come within striking range of a bronze medal. They missed out to Indonesia’s Hardy Rachmadian and Mohammad Billy Islam by just 28 pins.

Close behind in fifth place was a second UAE pairing of Hareb Al Mansouri and former Asian Games silver medallist Shaker Ali Hassan with a total of 2,430.

The third UAE duo of Mahmoud Al Attar and Mohammad Al Marzouqi was back in 46th place after finishing the day’s six games with a cumulative total of 2,068.

Next up for the bowlers following a day’s rest on Friday will be the men’s trios on Saturday and Sunday. The UAE bowlers still have bright medal chances as each competitors carries forward his scores over all events.

“The main thing now is to keep the focus. We need to give ourselves a chance for medals by just backing each other up in the trios onwards,” Al Suwaidi told Gulf News.

“It is a long competition and, since we have a team that has the experience in moving forward, I feel confident we can return with medals.”

The three-strong young UAE sailing team did not show much improvement in their results after two days of competition at the Wangsan Sailing Marina.

After six races, Mohammad Al Hammadi remained in eighth place overall with 48 points in the men’s Optimist class, while his senior teammate Hamad Ebrahim Al Hammadi stayed stuck in 11th after five races in the men’s Laser class. Young debutant Salama Adnan Al Mansouri was also in eighth overall with 38 points in the women’s Optimist class.

Meanwhile, two UAE swimmers failed to qualify for their semi-finals at the Munhak Aquatics Centre.

Mohammad Al Ghafri was placed sixth in his men’s 50-metre butterfly heat in a slow time of 25.78sec, a shade higher than his personal best of 25.74s. Mohammad Jassim Al Muhairi, meanwhile, did marginally better as he touched in fourth in his men’s 100-metre freestyle heat in a time of 54.96s, way below his personal best of 53.35s.

Friday is the final day of the swimming competition, with Mohammad Mubarak taking part in the men’s 50-metre breaststroke heats in the morning.