Saeed Suwaidan gave the UAE their first gold of the Arab Cycling Championships by edging a host of rivals in an exciting bunch sprint finish in the under-16 road race in Annaba, Algeria yesterday.
The 16-year-old survived wet conditions that saw four of his team-mates crash out and crossed the finish line of the 36km race in 56:35 (average speed 38.162kmph).
Suwaidan was part of a four-rider breakaway group early on, alongside Algerian duo Hamza Mansouri and Abdelraouf bin Qabo, and Egypt’s Ashraf Seif Eldin.
They led the entire race and it was the quartet who fought it out in the end before Suwaidan stormed to gold.
It is the first time an Emirati has won in an U-16 category and technical team manager Abdullah Suw-aidan – who is also Saeed’s father – said the entire UAE delegation couldn’t be happier with the young teenager’s achievement.
“We had lots of hopes riding on our younger cyclists because they were really well-prepared and were training hard throughout the summer followed by a long camp in France,” Abdullah told Sport360°.
“The competition is really strong and all the Arab countries have really good cyclists, so we’re very proud of this achievement.
“The conditions were the worst of the whole week so far and there were so many crashes. We lost four of our seven riders in that race. We had been practicing sprints a lot on the track at the Zayed Velodrome and clearly it has paid off.”
Saeed’s win was the UAE’s second medal after the seniors had won silver in the team time trial earlier.
Today, all eyes will be on Emirati standout Yousif Mirza in the seniors road race.