Athletics at the 2002 West Asian Games

Athletics
at the 2002 West Asian Games
Athletics ; at the 2002 West Asian Games
Venue	KAAF Stadium
Date	10–12 April
	← 1997 2005 →

At the 2002 West Asian Games. the athletics events were held in Kuwait City, Kuwait in April 2002. It had a men's only programme containing seventeen track and field events. Several athletics events usually held at multi-sport events were excluded from the schedule: the steeplechase, 10,000 metres, javelin and discus throws, marathon and race walking events were all absent.

All of the twelve countries present at the games sent athletes to compete in the athletics and eight of them reached the medal table. Qatar finished with the most medals, taking seven gold medals in a haul of sixteen. Saudi Arabia were the next best with five golds and fourteen overall, while the hosts Kuwait took third in the table through their four golds from eleven medals in total. These three countries dominated the events, with Jean-Claude Rabbath's gold for Lebanon and 's silver for Iran being the only top two placings among the rest of the nations.

Some of the best results came from the sprinting events: Salem Al-Yami won the 100 metres in a Saudi Arabian record time of 10.13 seconds, while Fawzi Al-Shammari did a 200/400 metres double, breaking the Kuwaiti national record with a run of 45.25 seconds in the latter.^[1] Qatari athletes won six of the nine medals on offer in the middle- and long-distance running events. Qatar also won both of the throwing events, including Bilal Saad Mubarak's shot put victory in 19.10 metres. Saudi Arabia swept the hurdles through Mubarak Ata Mubarak and Hadi Soua'an Al-Somaily with times of 13.60 and 49.04 seconds, respectively – a good standard for the region.

A number of West Asian Games champions went on to win at the 2002 Asian Games later that year: Fawzi Al-Shammari won the 400 m, Hadi Soua'an Al-Somaily won the 400 m hurdles, Khamis Abdullah Saifeldin won the 3000 m steeplechase and Salem Al-Ahmedi won the triple jump. Further to this, West Asian silver medallists Jamal Al-Saffar and Mukhlid Al-Otaibi topped the podium at the Asian Games and Hussein Al-Sabee (third in the long jump here) was another Asian Games champion.^[2] Many athletes were also medallists at the 2002 Asian Athletics Championships held in August later that year.

Medalists[]

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
100 m	Salem Al-Yami	10.13 GR	Jamal Al-Saffar	10.19		10.39
200 m	Fawzi Al-Shammari Kuwait	20.44 GR	Salem Al-Yami	20.81	Mohamed Al-Houti	21.02
400 m	Fawzi Al-Shammari Kuwait	45.25 GR	Hamdan Al-Bishi	46.34		48.13
800 m		1:48.66 GR	Salem Amer Al-Badri	1:49.70	Iran	1:49.81
1500 m	Abubaker Ali Kamal	3:51.50 GR	Abdulrahman Suleiman	3:51.76		3:52.63
5000 m	Khamis Abdullah Saifeldin	13:57.25 GR	Mukhlid Al-Otaibi	13:57.58	Ahmed Ibrahim Warsama	14:08.84
110 m hurdles	Mubarak Ata Mubarak	13.60		14.02	Mubarak Khasif	14.17
400 m hurdles	Hadi Soua'an Al-Somaily	49.04 GR	Bader Al-Fulaij Kuwait	49.58	Zahirudin Al-Najem Syria	51.15
4 × 100 m relay	Salem Al-Yami Jamal Al-Saffar Mubarak Ata Mubarak	39.02 GR		39.10	Kuwait	41.10
4 × 400 m relay	Kuwait Fawzi Al-Shammari Bader Al-Fulaij	3:06.51 GR	Hadi Soua'an Al-Somaily Hamdan Al-Bishi	3:06.57	Syria	3:11.75
High jump	Jean-Claude Rabbath	2.10 =GR		2.07	Kuwait	2.07
Pole vault	Kuwait	4.90 GR		4.80	Iran	4.50
Long jump		7.61 GR	Al-Waleed Abdulla	7.57	Hussein Al-Sabee	7.55
Triple jump	Salem Al-Ahmedi	16.50	Kuwait	16.36	Syria	15.96
Shot put	Bilal Saad Mubarak	19.10 GR	Ahmad Gholoum Kuwait	18.04	Iran	17.58
Hammer throw	Mohamed Faraj Al-Kaabi	66.34 GR	Ali Al-Zinkawi Kuwait	66.01	Kuwait	64.54
Decathlon	Ahmad Hassan Moussa	7262 GR	Iran	6838		5682