Special Olympics World Games: Pakistan’s medal tally goes up to 18

Touseef bags gold in 10km road race at Long Beach.

KARACHI: Pakistan’s special Olympians added another three medals — one gold and two silver — to take the country’s tally to 18 at the 2015 Special Olympics World Games in Los Angeles.

Touseeful Hasan bagged a gold in the 10-kilometre road race in Division 7 at Long Beach with a time of 22 minutes 58.90 seconds, narrowly beating UAE’s Albalooshi Moosa to the finish line by two seconds.

Meanwhile, Saira Ikram secured second place in the 100m sprint run in Division 25, finishing 00.72 seconds behind Verrissoun Fatima Zahara of Morocco.

The second silver medal went to Asim Zar in the 50m freestyle race Division M15, missing out on the gold after Jamaica’s Nicholas McBean pipped him by 02.91 seconds.

In other results, Nayab Bibi finished sixth in the 100m sprint in Division 4 while Marvi Azhar, who earlier won bronze, finished on fourth spot in the 800m sprint in Division 3.

The basketball pre-final competition saw Muhammad Usman scoring six points in Pakistan’s 20-17 triumph over Poland.

In the football five-a-side event, Pakistan failed to reach the final as they were defeated 3-1 by Slovenia and will now play against Nippon on Saturday for the third and fourth place match.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 1^st,  2015.

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