Maryam and Kamel book slots in final

BAHRAIN kept alive its hopes of adding to Rashid Ramzi's Olympic gold medal as world champion Maryam Yusuf Jamal and Asia's best Youssef Saad Kamel qualified for the final of the wmen's 1,500m and men's 800m respectively.

Maryam cruised into the medal round after comfortably winning her debut heat in Beijing, while Kamel scraped through to the men's 800m final as one of the two fastest losers from the semi-final round.

Maryam ran a supremely confident and relaxed race all the way through - making for a perfect performance on her first-ever appearance in any Olympic Games. She was supposed to debut on Tuesday in the heats, but the round was cancelled by organisers due to lack of participants.

Maryam led the 11-women field at the start and maintained a relatively slow pace. The 23-year-old eventually paced herself on the shoulder of Ukraine's Anna Mishchenko over the next two laps, but retook the advantage just before the bell, and she never looked back.

She claimed victory in four minutes 05.15 seconds, leading Spain's Natalia Rodriguez who was second in 4:05.30 and Morocco's Siham Halili who clocked 4:05.36 as automatic qualifiers.

The first three from each of the three heats and the three fastest losers advanced to the final, which will be held tomorrow at 2.50pm, Bahrain time.

Mishchenko was fortunate to qualify as a fastest loser, after finishing fourth in 4:05.61.

Her compatriot Iryna Lishchynska (4:13.60) and Kenya's Nancy Jebat Lagat (4:03.02) were winners of the other two 1,500m heats.

Meanwhile, in the 800m, Kamel made it through to the medal race, also to be held tomorrow, but just barely.

After doing well to keep a strong position among the leaders over the first lap of heat two, the 25-year-old managed to avoid disaster towards the end when he appeared to almost stumble heading into the final quarter.

But he managed to regain his footing, and down the line, sprinted hard to make up for a pair of lost positions to finish third in the race in 1:44.95. Kenya's Alfred Kirwa Yego (1:44.73) and Sudan's Ismail Ahmed Ismail (1:44.91) finished ahead of the Bahraini.

Only the top two from the event's three heats gained automatic berths, while Kamel's mark was the fastest among the losers.

Fellow-Bahraini Belal Mansoor Ali was eliminated from the same event after finishing fifth in the final 800m heat. Belal clocked 1:46.37 and was well off the pace for automatic qualification. Nabil Madi of Algeria and Gary Reed of Canada went through to the final from this heat.

Kenyan Wilfred Bungei won the first heat, and advanced along with Yeimer Lopez of Cuba, while the other fastest loser from the round was Nadjim Manseur, another Algerian, who completed the line-up of eight finalists.

None of the Bahraini athletes will be seen in action today. After Maryam and Kamel race, Bahrainis Abdulhak Zakariya, Reyadh Al Mustafa, and Saaed Nasar Sakar will be competing in the men's marathon on the final day of the Olympics on Sunday. Kamar's participation in Beijing will be his first as part of the national team.