UAE Athletics Federation president Ahmad Al Kamali says he is unable to explain the failure of the country’s two runners to win a medal in the Asian Games’ 5,000m.
There was disappointment for the UAE as medal hopefuls Alia Saeed and Betlhem Belayneh finished sixth and 10th respectively in Thursday’s final.
Saeed posted a time of 15:30.46, 30 seconds behind winner Maryam Yusuf Jamal, the Olympic bronze medal winner from Bahrain, while Belayneh came home in 15:49.60, 49 seconds behind the champion.
Al Kamali said: “We were not expecting these positions. We expected both to finish higher and to get at least one medal.”
Saeed, 23, had been hoping to make it an Asian Games gold medal double after her 10,000m triumph, while Belayneh, nicknamed Betty, had won 5,000m gold at the Asian Athletics Championships held in Pune, India, last year.
Al Kamali added: “We might need to think about the training programme and after the report we will see what we can do. We have to see what went wrong and maybe make decisions to correct this, but we also have to be careful.”
He added: “We have to be realistic; many countries have 30 or 40 male and female athletes. We only have two, so we have to be patient with them. Both girls are still young so the future is bright for them.”