16 Jul. 2015 – In Athletics, eight athletes were participating at the 2015 Summer Universiade that was held in Gwangju, South Korea, and that started on the 3rd of July and ended on the 14th. Athletics started on the 8th and was finished by the 12th.
Surprisingly, the Track and Field coaches left on the 7th, one day before the start of athletics. Zeina MINA and Georges ASSAF were their as sport official and coach respectively. We should mention that the Universiade are the World University Games; which means that it is the biggest international event for universities where most of the world’s greatest athletes are competing. It is not acceptable that Lebanon don’t take it seriously.
Lebanese Judo at the 28th Summer Universiade Gwangju 2015
Lebanese Tennis at the 28th Summer Universiade Gwangju 2015
Lebanese Badminton and Fencing at the 28th Summer Universiade Gwangju 2015
Lebanese Swimming at the 28th Summer Universiade Gwangju 2015
Lebanese Table Tennis at the 28th Summer Universiade Gwangju 2015
Lebanese Taekwondo at the 28th Summer Universiade Gwangju 2015
Lory TASHJIAN (USJ) was the first athlete to compete on the 8th of July in 400 meters women. She clocked 1:03.69 and finished 5th in her heat. The next day she ran the 200 meters in 28 seconds.
Sandy Karam with the Silver Medalist of the 20km Race Walk
Sandy Karam (NDU) took part in the 20km race walking in the early morning of July 10, and finished her race in 2hours 9 minutes and 54 seconds, to set a new record performance for this distance.
Nidal HASROUN (Antonins) threw the javelin at 36.07 meters on his third and last attempt after failing the first one and scoring 31.08 on his second throw.
Charbel SAAD (Balamand) was lucky to get directly to the final in the men’s Shot Put where he threw 12.58 on his last attempt. He threw 12.47 and his first attempt and failed the second one.
Abed AL RAYYES (AUST) ran the 100m in 11.36. He previously ran 11.18 in Lebanon and surprised everyone with his performance. It is his first year in track and field and this experience will surely push him to go further and train harder in order to achieve better results.
Ali EL ACHKAR (LIU) unfortunetaly didn’t complete his 400m race. In this championship, the shooting gun was causing some athletes a problem; most of them couldn’t hear it. Ali faced the same problem and couldn’t get off the blocks on the start. He was shocked that everyone left the blocks and he didn’t and wasn’t able to continue his race.
Both Hussein ZAYAT (LIU) and Hussein KHALIFE (AUB) ran the 800 meters. ZAYAT ran the distance in 2:07.59 while KHALIFE was the only one from the track team to set a new personal best clocking 2:02.98 but was later on disqualified after stepping on the lane in the first 100m curve.
The last one to play was Rawan BACHROUCH (Antonins) who took part in the shot put event while she prefers running but was able to qualify due to the lack of participants in the qualifications. She threw 5.98m in the shot put, her only legal mark after two failed throws.
Finally, Krystel SANEH (ALBA) was registered in both the Long Jump and 100m Hurdles. But with the lack of responsibility of the official and the coach of the Lebanese Track team, they didn’t confirm her participation in the Long Jump, therefore she wasn’t able to compete in it. She ran the hurdles in 15.70 seconds 0.3 seconds away from her personal best.
At the end, the Universiade is a really good experience, but unfortunately, in our country, we take it more as a recreation than a World University Games! Things need to change, the team should be, in all the sports, serious and aiming to compete and not only participate in these kind of events!
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