Doha: Mohammad Mahkoum, the manager of the UAE athletics team at the 12th Arab Games, has expressed his satisfaction at the team's haul of three medals - one gold, one silver and one bronze - here so far.

All three medals were won by women runners, with Alia Saeed winning gold in the 5,000m and Betlhem Belayneh silver in the same race and bronze in the 1,500m.

Former Asian gold medallist Omar Al Salfa and shot putter Mohammad Ahmad achieved nothing in their competitions on Monday.

"We are proud of our women's achievements. The one-two finish in the 5,000m race was fantastic and in fact beyond our wildest dreams," Mahkoum said.

"We expected Alia to win a gold medal, but Betlhem was a pleasant surprise. She did more than what we expected from her at this stage. Both are young and have a great capacity for improvement and will have a bright future."

Mahkoum, who was himself a 200m champion, talked about Al Shalfa, who finished fifth in the 200m final in 21.59sec despite running 21.30s in qualification. "We expected a tough race and I said before that the competition for medals will be strong," he said.

"Yes Omar (Al Salfa) is an Asian gold medallist, but Seun Ogunode, from Qatar, is also an Asian gold medallist and Aziz Ouhadi, from Morocco, is the African champion and he has to compensate losing the medal of the 100m sprint.

"Every race is different from the other and weather does make changes and there was a strong wind during the race, but I am not finding excuses because the time is not bad and we are still waiting for Omar to achieve good results in his next competitions."

Ouhadi won the 200m gold medal, while Ogunode finished second for the silver and Abdulla Al Sooli from Oman won the bronze.

In the shot put, Ahmad made three illegal throws and scored nothing. "Mohammad (Ahmad) was taking part to gain experience and we expected him to finish behind the top three medal winners, because in the Arab Athletics Championship last month he threw a distance of more than 17 metres.

"But he changed his throwing style from the old routine to the new and needs time and more exposure to strong competitions.

"We still have hopes in the 4x100m men's relay team to win one medal as they finished second last month in the Arab Championship and we also expect Mohammad Abbass to win a medal in the triple jump," Mahkoum added.