2008 Arab Junior Athletics Championships

The 2008 Arab Junior Athletics Championships was the thirteenth edition of the international athletics competition for under-20 athletes from Arab countries. It took place between 20–23 June in Radès, Tunisia – the second time that the country hosted the tournament. A total of 44 athletics events were contested, 22 for men and 22 for women.^[1]

The host nation Tunisia topped the medal table with thirteen gold medals among a haul of 45 medals – over a third of the total on offer. Sudan was comfortably the next most successful nation, having eleven gold medals and a total of twenty, and was followed by Egypt on seven golds and ten medals overall. Syria and Bahrain each took three golds, while Qatar was the only other nation to reach double digits with a total of ten medals. Twelve of the thirteen participating nations reached the medal table, with Palestine being the only nation to miss out. Morocco and Algeria, two of the foremost athletics nations of the region, were absent.

Six athletes won multiple individual medals. of Sudan was the athlete of the tournament, as she won the 400 metres, 100 metres hurdles, and 400 metres hurdles titles, was runner-up in the 200 metres, and won a further silver and a gold in the relays with Sudan. Her team mate Amina Bakhit swept the middle-distance events with an 800 metres/1500 metres/3000 metres triple, and also shared in the relay medals. Another Sudanese, , claimed an 800/1500 m double on the men's side. There were doubles in both the men's and women's short sprints, with Emirati Omar Juma Al-Salfa and Syria's Ghofrane Mohammad taking doubles. Tunisia's claimed an unusual combination of events in the form of the women's pole vault and triple jump.

Javelin thrower Ihab Abdelrahman El Sayed, who broke the championship record in Radès, went on to take a medal at the 2008 World Junior Championships in Athletics two weeks later.^[2] Another Egyptian thrower, hammer runner-up , was still a junior by the time of the 2010 World Junior Championships in Athletics and reached the podium there.^[3] Three Arab junior athletes were still in the youth category and went on to win a medal at the 2009 World Youth Championships in Athletics: Awad El Karim Makki, and .^[4]

Medal summary[]

Men[]

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 metres	Omar Juma Al-Salfa (UAE)	10.53	(QAT)	10.84	(KSA)	10.87
200 metres	Omar Juma Al-Salfa (UAE)	21.14	(KSA)	21.29	Awad El Karim Makki (SUD)	21.62
400 metres	Awad El Karim Makki (SUD)	47.48	(TUN)	48.93	(KUW)	48.71
800 metres	(SUD)	1:52.71	(QAT)	1:53.16	(TUN)	1:53.71
1500 metres	(SUD)	3:45.75	(QAT)	3:47.59	(TUN)	3:48.59
5000 metres	(QAT)	15:6.98	(TUN)	15:18.08	(LBA)	15:21.02
10,000 metres	(BHR)	30:24.40	(TUN)	32:14.35	(TUN)	32:25.86
110 metres hurdles	Abdulaziz Al-Mandeel (KUW)	13.78 CR	(SYR)	14.53	(KSA)	14.66
400 metres hurdles	(KUW)	52.2	(KSA)	52.6	(SUD)	52.7
3000 metres steeplechase	(BHR)	8:53.93	(JOR)	9:26.24	(TUN)	9:29.09
4 × 100 m relay	Saudi Arabia (KSA)	41.41	Tunisia (TUN)	42.39	Oman (OMN)	43.37
4 × 400 m relay	Sudan (SUD) Awad El Karim Makki	3:15.35	Tunisia (TUN)	3:20.42	Qatar (QAT)	3:20.86
10 km walk	Hédi Teraoui (TUN)	42:49.22 CR	(SYR)	50:43.4	Only two finishers[nb1]
High jump	Karim Samir Lotfy (EGY)	2.19 m CR	(QAT)	2.11 m	(KUW)	2.06 m
Pole vault	(TUN)	4.70 m	(KSA)	4.60 m	(TUN)	4.40 m
Long jump	(TUN)	7.43 m	(KSA)	7.38 m	(LBA)	6.92 m
Triple jump	(BHR)	15.56 m	(KSA)	15.50 m	(LBA)	14.87 m
Shot put (6 kg)	(TUN)	17.22 m	(UAE)	16.14 m	(KUW)	15.98 m
Discus throw (1.7 kg)	(SYR)	56.77 m	(TUN)	51.08 m	(KUW)	50.85 m
Hammer throw (6 kg)	(EGY)	69.64 m	(EGY)	65.53 m	(QAT)	57.68 m
Javelin throw (800 g)	Ihab Abdelrahman El Sayed (EGY)	73.67 m CR	(KUW)	56.80 m	(QAT)	53.33 m
Decathlon	(QAT)	6619 pts	(KSA)	6599 pts	(OMN)	5803 pts

• ^nb1 There were four starters in the men's 10,000 m walk, but both Jebril Rahmet Khan and Maher Ben Halima were disqualified.

Women[]

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 metres	Ghofrane Mohammad (SYR)	12.04	(TUN)	12.55	(SUD)	12.59
200 metres	Ghofrane Mohammad (SYR)	24.39	(SUD)	25.01	(TUN)	25.33
400 metres	(SUD)	56.62	(TUN)	57.39	(SUD)	58.75
800 metres	Amina Bakhit (SUD)	2:16.22	(SUD)	2:17.06	(TUN)	2:18.39
1500 metres	Amina Bakhit (SUD)	4:39.30	(SUD)	4:41.12	(TUN)	4:42.14
3000 metres	Amina Bakhit (SUD)	9:38.95	(SUD)	9:40.60	(TUN)	9:49.33
5000 metres	(TUN)	17:40.49	(TUN)	18:37.67	(JOR)	19:44.20
100 metres hurdles	(SUD)	14.81	(TUN)	15.03	(TUN)	15.11
400 metres hurdles	(SUD)	62.13	(TUN)	63.82	(TUN)	64.29
3000 metres steeplechase	(TUN)	11:00.62	(TUN)	11:17.06	(JOR)	11:45.78
4 × 100 m relay	Tunisia (TUN)	48.66	Sudan (SUD)	53.77	Syria (SYR) Ghofrane Mohammad	57.16
4 × 400 m relay	Sudan (SUD) Amina Bakhit	3:48.52	Tunisia (TUN)	3:51.05	Jordan (JOR)	4:35.56
5000 m race walk	(TUN)	24:33.27 CR	(SYR)	25:13.11	(TUN)	29:13.70
High jump	(EGY)	1.67 m	(TUN)	1.65 m	(TUN)	1.61 m
Pole vault	(TUN)	3.20 m	(EGY)	3.10 m	(TUN)	2.90 m
Long jump	(TUN)	5.36 m	(BHR)	5.28 m	(SYR)	5.24 m
Triple jump	(TUN)	12.34 m	(TUN)	12.21 m	(BHR)	11.28 m
Shot put (4 kg)	(EGY)	13.44 m	(TUN)	12.62 m	(BHR)	10.06 m
Discus throw (1 kg)	(EGY)	43.79 m	(TUN)	40.17 m	(LBA)	38.50 m
Javelin throw (600 g)	(TUN)	41.74 m	(LBA)	31.39 m	(QAT)	25.47 m
Hammer throw (4 kg)	(EGY)	53.36 m CR	(EGY)	42.50 m	Only two finishers[nb2]
Heptathlon	(TUN)	4296 pts	(JOR)	4136 pts	(TUN)	3314 pts

• ^nb2 A third competitor in the women's hammer throw, Tunisia's Najet Ben Chikha, failed to record a valid mark.

Medal table[]

  *   Host nation (Tunisia)

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Tunisia*	13	17	15	45
2	Sudan	11	5	4	20
3	Egypt	7	3	0	10
4	Syria	3	3	2	8
5	Bahrain	3	1	2	6
6	Qatar	2	4	4	10
7	Kuwait	2	1	4	7
8	United Arab Emirates	2	1	0	3
9	Saudi Arabia	1	6	2	9
10	Jordan	0	2	3	5
11	Libya	0	1	4	5
12	Oman	0	0	2	2
Totals (12 nations)		44	44	42	130

References[]

Results

• Championnats Arabes sur piste JuniorsRades, 20 au 23-06-2008. Tunis Athletisme. Retrieved on 2015-05-31.
• Al Batal Al Arabi, Volume 66 (pp. 25–36). Arab Athletics Federation (2008). Retrieved on 2015-05-31.
• Gomri, Slim (2008-06-24). Arab Junior Championships. IAAF. Retrieved on 2016-07-08.