Saudi athletes bagged 55 medals during the West Asian Paralympic Games, which concluded in Sharjah.
Three more medals were added on the final day to bring the Kingdom’s final tally to 17 gold, 23 silver and 15 bronze in sports including table tennis, goalball and wheelchair basketball.
In the table tennis mixed doubles, Galia Al-Anzi and Ibrahim Al-Hassan took silver after losing to Iraq 2-3, following a 3-0 victory over Jordan.
In goalball, a sport for visually impaired ath-letes, the Saudi team won bronze with a 12-8 win over Qatar in the third-place play-off. The King-dom’s wheelchair basketball team defeated Bahrain 57-42 to also take bronze. In the over-107 kg category of the weightlifting competition, Khalid Al-Najim lifted 211 kg to secure bronze.
The Saudi para athletics team won 34 medals: 11 gold, 14 silver and nine bronze. The table tennis team grabbed nine medals in total (three gold, four silver and two bronze). In boccia, a sport for people with cerebral palsy or related neurological conditions, the Kingdom won seven medals (three gold, three silver and one bronze), while its badminton players took home two silver medals. Saudis also won a bronze medal in each of goalball, wheelchair basketball and weightlifting.
The 4th West Asian Paralympic Games began on Jan. 27 and featured competitors from 11 countries: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
Iraq finished in first place, the UAE in second, Saudi Arabia in the third place and Bahrain in fourth.—APP
