Dubai: Darwish Al Bishri, Humaid Al Mussharekh, Pedro Manuel Fialho Correia Dos Santos and Ahmad Al Hindasi all picked up bronze medals in the four men’s categories on the opening day of the archery competition at the third Nad Al Sheba (NAS) Ramadan Sports late on Tuesday.
Al Bishri won third place in the Compound Men’s competition with a 136-133 win over Dutch archer Jos Versteegen, while Portuguese Santos edged out Yemen’s Nasser Ihsanullah 6-5 in a shoot-off for the Recurve Men expats bronze medal.
The third place spot in the Recurve UAE Nationals went to Al Mussharekh who got the better of Ahmad Al Owais, while young Ras Al Khaimah lad Ahmad Al Hindasi beat Mohammad Khalfan 6-4 to take the bronze medal in the Cadets Men’s category.
“This is such a huge win for me and I am pleased with what I have achieved,” Dos Santos told Gulf News.
“I would have expected to do better here, but I will take this anyway,” the Dubai-based banker added.
The qualifying rounds got under way off from 10pm on Tuesday with Shaikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman, Dubai Sports Council (DSC) attending the start of competition. He went around the specially set-up archery tent at the NAS Sports Complex and wanted to know about the rules governing the competition.
At the end of the qualifying rounds the best four advanced to the semi-finals with the third and fourth-placed archers fighting it out for the bronze medals. The top two archers in each category will contest in the gold medal match scheduled for July 6.
