12 Jul 2018
Tampere, 12 July 2018. Aspire Academy graduates and student athletes are in action at the IAAF World U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland representing Qatar. The Championships runs from 10 to 15 July and is being held at Ratina Stadium and on Day 2 Aspire student athletes, Saoud Al-Humaidi and Owaab Barrow came through in their respective heats for 110m Hurdles to qualify for semi-finals. Al Humaidi wobbled a bit as he made contact with the first two hurdles but recovered enough to regain his stride and finish 3rd in his heat with a time of 14.11s (+0.3m/s) to clinch an automatic qualification spot.
In the other 110m hurdles heat Aspire’s Owaab Barrow, a recent Gold medal winner for Qatar at the Youth (U18) Olympic Games Asian Qualification competition in Thailand, set a Qatar U20 Record in the same event. Entering the Championships ranked 77th in the world, Owaab ran a clean, controlled race to finish third behind the World number 7 and 11 ranked athletes in a blistering 13.78s (+1.1m/s) over the 0.99m barriers and qualify for the semis.
From the 35 countries represented in the heats of the 110m Hurdles, only eight countries qualified two athletes to the semi- finals - Qatar being one of them. In the first of the semi finals, Saoud Al-Humaidi finished eighth while in the second semi, Owaab Barrow managed to finish sixth with a time of 14.05s, and this left Owaab ranked 19th overall and with two years left in the U20 age group he should be back and aiming to make the final in 2020.
In the preliminary round of the men’s Hammer Throw (6kg), Aspire’s Khalil Bedoui came into the competition with a personal best of 68.32m and was chasing the automatic qualification distance of 74m to progress to the final on Day 4. Bedoui threw a distance of 63.67m to finish 12th in his pool and 25th overall a ranking much improved from his 36th World Ranking upon entering the Championships.
On Day 3 of the Championship, Thursday 12th July Aspire student athlete and Qatar’s Asian Junior 400m Hurdles Silver Medalist Bassem Hemeida finished 2nd with a time of 52.35 sec and qualify for the semis scheduled for Friday 13th July. Also on Day 3 Aspire Academy graduate and Asian Junior Silver Medalist Nuh Andu begin his quest to qualify for Friday’s High Jump final at 19:45 Doha Time.