ATHLETICS – BAHRAIN’S reigning Olympic champion and former world champion Winfred Yavi will get her gold medal quest underway today at the 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan in the women’s 10,000 metres final.
Yavi is spearheading a full-strength, 34-athlete national team in the track and field competitions at this year’s Asiad, to be held at Nagoya’s 30,000-capacity Paloma Mizuho Stadium.
Yavi will be hitting the track at 3.25pm, Bahrain time. She will be joined in the race by compatriot Ruth Jebet, who is a former Olympic champion with both having claimed gold in the women’s 3,000m steeplechase.
Yavi’s run today will be the first of her three scheduled participations in Aichi-Nagoya.
She is also set to battle in the women’s 3,000m steeplechase final on Sunday and then the women’s 5,000m final the very next evening.
Yavi and Jebet are two of several Bahraini athletes scheduled to compete today.
Raihanah Garoubah and Edidiong Odiong are both set to run in the women’s 100m round one heats, starting at 1.33pm, while Ali Mohamed Haji and Abdulraof Rashed will be competing in the men’s 100m round one heats, set to begin at 2.08pm. Both times are Bahrain.
Meanwhile, kicking off the day’s programme for the kingdom’s stars will be the 4x400m mixed relay squad, who are defending champions and Asian Games record holders in the event.
The final quartet who will be taking to the track has yet to be determined, but six runners are entered to fly the kingdom’s flag, including former world champions Salwa Eid Naser and Kemi Adekoya, along with Sufian Abdulghani, Abbas Ali, Musa Isah, and Alaa Sami.
They will be running in the heats scheduled for a 4.20am start. If qualified, the medal round will be at 4.15pm. Both times are also Bahrain.
Naser, Adekoya, Ali, and Isah made up the Bahraini team that captured the 4x400m mixed relay gold at the previous Asian Games in 2022 held in Hangzhou, China.
Also part of Bahrain’s athletics national team in Aichi-Nagoya are Birhanu Balew, Eunice Chumba, Zenab Mahamat, Aisha Abdulla, Hajar Alkhaldi, Layla Kamal, Zainab Ali, Nelly Jepkosgei, Tigest Mekonen, Shitaye Eshete, Noora Jasim, Ebrahim Simon, Salem Bakheet, Abdisamad Hirsi, Hamse Dhabar, Zouhair Aouad, Abdikani Hamid, Albert Kiptoo, Elhassan Elabbassi, Shumi Gurmu, Abdelrahman Mahmoud, and Ahmed Sabri.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh