Athletics at the 2002 West Asian Games
Venue	KAAF Stadium
Date	10–12 April 2002

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 Ali Feizi'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  Saudi Arabia	10.13 GR	Jamal Al-Saffar  Saudi Arabia	10.19	Khalid Al-Obaidli  Qatar	10.39
200 m	Fawzi Al-Shammari  Kuwait	20.44 GR	Salem Al-Yami  Saudi Arabia	20.81	Mohamed Al-Houti  Oman	21.02
400 m	Fawzi Al-Shammari  Kuwait	45.25 GR	Hamdan Al-Bishi  Saudi Arabia	46.34	Mohammed Al-Muwalid  Saudi Arabia	48.13
800 m	Adam Abdu Adam  Qatar	1:48.66 GR	Salem Amer Al-Badri  Qatar	1:49.70	Jalil Gomehei  Iran	1:49.81
1500 m	Abubaker Ali Kamal  Qatar	3:51.50 GR	Abdulrahman Suleiman  Qatar	3:51.76	Faisal Al-Nahli  Saudi Arabia	3:52.63
5000 m	Khamis Abdullah Saifeldin  Qatar	13:57.25 GR	Mukhlid Al-Otaibi  Saudi Arabia	13:57.58	Ahmed Ibrahim Warsama  Qatar	14:08.84
110 m hurdles	Mubarak Ata Mubarak  Saudi Arabia	13.60	Nasser Meziane  Qatar	14.02	Mubarak Khasif  Qatar	14.17
400 m hurdles	Hadi Soua'an Al-Somaily  Saudi Arabia	49.04 GR	Bader Al-Fulaij  Kuwait	49.58	Zahirudin Al-Najem  Syria	51.15
4 × 100 m relay	Saudi Arabia Salem Al-Yami Jamal Al-Saffar Khalifa Al-Saker Mubarak Ata Mubarak	39.02 GR	Qatar	39.10	Kuwait Abdullah Sekin Ibrahim Al-Asak Saad Al-Zaferi Husein Al-Youhah	41.10
4 × 400 m relay	Kuwait Fawzi Al-Shammari Khaled Al-Johar Bader Al-Fulaij Basil Al-Fadhli	3:06.51 GR	Saudi Arabia Hadi Soua'an Al-Somaily Hamdan Al-Bishi Mohammed Al-Muwalid Bilal Al-Houssaoui	3:06.57	Syria	3:11.75
High jump	Jean-Claude Rabbath  Lebanon	2.10 =GR	Omar Al-Masrahi  Saudi Arabia	2.07	Salem Al-Anezi  Kuwait	2.07
Pole vault	Fahad Al-Mershad  Kuwait	4.90 GR	Abdulla Ghanim Saeed  Qatar	4.80	Pendar Shoghian  Iran	4.50
Long jump	Said Mansoor  Qatar	7.61 GR	Al-Waleed Abdulla  Qatar	7.57	Hussein Al-Sabee  Saudi Arabia	7.55
Triple jump	Salem Al-Ahmedi  Saudi Arabia	16.50	Khaled Al-Bakheet  Kuwait	16.36	Fayez Al-Kheirat  Syria	15.96
Shot put	Bilal Saad Mubarak  Qatar	19.10 GR	Ahmad Gholoum  Kuwait	18.04	Ali Rahmani  Iran	17.58
Hammer throw	Mohamed Faraj Al-Kaabi  Qatar	66.34 GR	Ali Al-Zenkawi  Kuwait	66.01	Naser Al-Jarallah  Kuwait	64.54
Decathlon	Ahmad Hassan Moussa  Qatar	7262 GR	Ali Feizi  Iran	6838	Khalifa Isa Abdullah  Bahrain	5682

Medal table

Mukhlid Al-Otaibi (pictured at the 2008 Olympics) won the 5000 metres silver medal for Saudi Arabia.

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Qatar (QAT)	7	6	3	16
2	Saudi Arabia (KSA)	5	6	3	14
3	Kuwait (KUW)	4	4	3	11
4	Lebanon (LIB)	1	0	0	1
5	Iran (IRI)	0	1	3	4
6	Syria (SYR)	0	0	3	3
7	Bahrain (BRN)	0	0	1	1
	Oman (OMA)	0	0	1	1
Totals (8 entries)		17	17	17	51

References

External links

• Official website