15 Oct 2018
Buenos Aires, 15 October 2018. Qatar’s discus thrower and Aspire Academy student-athlete Ahmad Al-Haj finished the discus throw event at the “Youth Olympic Games” in Buenos Aires, Argentina on the 11th rank.
The 17-year-old track and field athlete throw 51,39m in Stage 1 on October 11, and managed to improve in Stage 2 on October 14 with a throw of 53,78m. These throws combined resulted in his 11th rank. The gold medal went to Connor Bell from New Zealand, who dominated the event in both stages with spectacular throws of 66,84m and 66,24m.
"This was Ahmed’s first ever global championships and I’m sure he will have learned a lot about how to deal with pressure after competing in such a prestigious competition. Hopefully this experience will serve him well as he prepares for the World U20 Championships in 2020," said Tom Crick, Head Coach Athletics at Aspire Academy.
Fellow Aspire student-athlete Owaab Barrow won the Stage 1 of the 110m hurdles event with a personal best of 13,33 seconds on October 13 and is going to compete in the deciding Stage 2 on Tuesday evening. With a similar performance as in his first appearance, he is one of the candidates for a medal.
The rules for the “Youth Olympic Games” are quite different to any other Athletics competition. There are be two stages with all athletes competing in one group. For both track and field the performance of each athlete in both stages are added together to determine the overall final placings. The highest score wins for field events and the lowest score for track events.