Five-time Dakar Rally champion Nasser al-Attiyah did no training for the Asian Games and still came away with two medals in shooting.
The 52-year-old all-rounder, already an Asian Games gold medalist in shooting in 2002 and 2010, returned to the podium with a men’s skeet team silver and skeet individual bronze in Hangzhou.
Such is the Qatari’s busy life on the rally circuit that he had no time to pull the trigger in training before arriving in China.
Photo: AP
“When I am competing in rally driving, no skeet training. Nothing, zero training,” said al-Attiyah, who won an Olympic skeet bronze in London in 2012. “I didn’t do training for the Games. I used my experience and this is why I have two medals here at the Asian Games.”
Al-Attiyah won his fifth Dakar title as a driver and second in a row in January in his Toyota, with more than an hour’s advantage in the overall standings over Frenchman Sebastien Loeb.
He said rallying and shooting were different, but some skills applied to both.
Photo: AFP
“Strength, mind strength,” said al-Attiyah, who shares top billing as Qatar’s most accomplished sportsman with high jump world champion Mutaz Essa Barshim.
“Rallying is very difficult. We are competing at a high level in rallying. It is not easy to rally and shoot at a high level, but every sport helps,” he said.
Al-Attiyah, who once had three sports on the go, but dropped horse riding, has competed in every Olympics in skeet shooting since the 1996 Games in Atlanta, Georgia.
He has his sights set on Paris next year, despite skipping all International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) events last year due to his hectic rallying schedule.
“I am not in the ISSF competitions at the moment because I am also a professional rally driver. I am so busy,” he said. “The next [Olympic qualification] competition will be in [South] Korea [next month]. There are two quota places. I hope to take one to be in Paris.”
He is scheduled to be back in his car at the Cyprus Rally next week.
Separately, three North Korean shooters yesterday cried their eyes out on the podium after winning the country’s first gold medal of the Games.
The trio saluted and gradually dissolved into floods of tears as the red, white and blue North Korean flag was raised in Hangzhou — in contravention of World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) rules.
It was North Korea’s first gold medal of the Games and first in major international competition since the COVID-19 pandemic, having skipped the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 and then been barred from last year’s Winter Olympics in Beijing.
Paek Ok-sim, Pang Myong-hyang and Ri Ji-ye triumphed in the 10m running target women’s team competition ahead of Kazakhstan and Indonesia.
Another gold soon rolled in for North Korea, for gymnast An Chang-ok in the women’s vault. Compatriot Kim Son-hyang took silver.
North Korea’s flag was brandished at the opening ceremony and at medals ceremonies, despite supposedly being banned from doing so over doping violations.
WADA in 2021 declared the country’s national anti-doping body “non-compliant” and slapped it with sanctions.
They included not being able to fly the North Korean flag at any regional, continental or world sports event, excluding the Olympics and Paralympics.
On Sunday, Olympic Council of Asia president Raja Randhir Singh defended the organization’s decision to allow North Korea to fly its flag.
“We are in discussions with them [WADA] and North Korea has written to them as well explaining their position,” Singh said. “We are explaining from our side as well.”
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