Abu Dhabi: UAE’s Mohammad Al Hammadi silenced his critics after creating one of the biggest upsets of the Paralympic Games by defeating firm favourite and the reigning champion Walid Ktila of Tunisia to capture the gold medal in the men’s 800m T34 on Thursday.
“People said at the beginning that I probably won’t win. I came from behind and I won,” said a jubilant Al Hammadi, who has been playing second fiddle to Ktila for a while now.
Al Hammadi had twice finished behind the Tunisian at the 2015 and 2013 World Championships. However, at Rio Olympic Stadium, the Emirati athlete ran a tactically brilliant race, coming from behind to overtake Ktila in the home stretch. He chested the tape in a time 1:40.24seconds.
“They kept saying ‘Mohamed is not training, not doing this, not doing that,’ and I won the gold medal. But Walid was nice to me and congratulated me,” said Al Hammadi, whose effort took the UAE medals tally to five.
Ktila was gracious in defeat and said: “In the end Mohammad is a friend and is from an Arab country. So I’m happy for him as well. I took part in the race and wanted to get the gold, but I’m happy with silver as long as it was Mohammad that got the gold.”
The bronze medal was bagged by 19-year-old Australian Rheed McCracken with a timing of 1:41.25.
UAE was in line for another gold earlier in the day but ace shooter Abdullah Sultan Al Aryani missed his last shot in his pet event, R6 — mixed 50m rifle prone SH1, and had to be content with the sliver.
Al Aryani, 46, who won gold in the same event in London four years back, had appeared to have the gold medal safely in his grasp after taking the lead with a score of 10.2. China’s Cuiping Zhang had a 9.8 in the first of the two remaining shots.
The Chinese shooter had to breach a one point gap in the remaining two shots and very few would have bet on her to do that.
However, with Al Aryani shooting an unexpected 9.5 in his final shot, Zhang got the opening she was looking for. She shot an incredible 10.8 to steal gold for China. Zhang’s final score of 206.8 was also a Paralympic record and Al Aryani’s 206.5 saw him settle for the third silver of the Paralympics Games. Serbia’s Laslo Suranji finished with a distant bronze with a score of 185.2.
“Of course I am very disappointed today — the gold medal was in my hands,” said Al Aryani adding, “The bullet wasn’t like the rest of them. It sounded different. I was thinking I already had the gold medal. Part of me is happy to win three silver medals, but my ambition was always to get gold.”
Zhang couldn’t believe that she has struck gold and was overwhelmed by her showing saying, “I was thinking that I would just try my best for the last two shots. I was extremely excited. In this competition [R6], I haven’t been a champion for many years, so during the game I just thought ‘I want to enjoy this’.”
Zhang had also won gold in the R8 50m rifle 3P SH1 and a silver in the 10m AR standing SH1 earlier.
“When I got my silver medal, I told myself ‘okay I have just reached my target so now I will just enjoy the rest of my competitions’, but I didn’t expect that I would have two more gold medals!,” said the 28-year-old.
