Pakistan’s golden run continues in Los Angeles

KARACHI: Pakistan continued to impress on Saturday as they secured a handful of more gold medals to take their tally to 13 on the penultimate day of the Special Olympics World Games in Los Angeles.
At Long Beach, Tauseef Hassan, who had won 10-km road race cycling gold on Friday, kept his fine run, claiming another gold in the five-km race with a timing of 11:10.49. He was followed by Albaloushi Moosa of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Calmes of Philippines, who took silver and bronze medals, respectively.
In 200-km races Uzma Yousuf, Salman Saeed Siddiqui and Sumbal Yousaf secured gold medals for Pakistan.
Mehmoona failed to impress as she returned empty-handed, finishing sixth in the two-km road race.
Umme Salma Tayyab defeated a Palestinian player 21-18, 21-12 in the group five badminton final to clinch gold.
Coach Muhammad Mustaneer said Umme Salma did a fine job. “I also expect a gold in mixed doubles,” Mustaneer said.
In table tennis doubles, Pakistan crushed Iran 3-0, but lost to Chinese Taipei 2-3. In the third game they edged Belarus 3-1.
Pakistan sent four boys and four girls for the athletic events. Arshad Javed is the athletics coach and Irfan Javed his deputy.
Pakistan’s six athletes competed on Saturday. Amina Irshad in division six won silver in long jump, registering 2.63 metre. The gold went to Hidvegi Amanda of Sweden. Nadir Hussain bagged silver in the 100m division 49 race with a timing of 1.52 minutes.
Nayab Bibi won bronze in 200m in division one by clocking 38:53 seconds. Hydees Jazlyl of Iceland claimed silver and Herman Kurshel of St Lucia settled with a bronze.
Saqib Waseem finished fourth in 100m, while Amina Irshad ended seventh in 200m.
Saira Ikram wrapped-up her 200m race at the fifth place.
For the first time in the history of the Games, Pakistan won bronze medal in football when they defeated Nippon 5-3 in an interesting third place play-off.
In basketball, Pakistan grabbed silver medal.
In swimming, Farah Vohra ended seventh in 25m freestyle. Pakistan expect a medal in 4 X 25 metre freestyle relay on Sunday (today).
At the end of the penultimate day, Pakistan had 13 gold, eight silver and five bronze medals.
Pakistan won six gold medals in cycling, two each in swimming and badminton and one each in athletics, table tennis and tennis.
Three silver medals were won in athletics, two each in swimming and cycling and one in basketball. Out of five bronze, two came in athletics and one each in cycling, table tennis and football.