Egypt dominates Arab Championships led by distance sweeps from youngsters

Egypt rolled through the 2nd Arab Championships earlier this month, winning 33 of 42 events, including distance sweeps by Marwan Ahmed Aly Morsy and Roaia Mohamed Ahmed.

Mohamed Ahmed, just 16 years old, won the women’s 400, 800 and 1500 frees. Her first win was the longest race, where she went 17:17.27 to win the mile. She followed that up with a 4:23.84 in the 400 and a 9:04.75 in the 800-meter distance for the triple gold medal performance.

On the men’s side, it was Ahmed Aly Morsy, 19, who one-upped his female teammate, winning four races. Ahmed Aly Morsy paced the 200 (1:51.38), 400 (3:54.51), 800 (8:06.31) and 1500 (15:41.32) freestyles. He had to fight hardest for that 200 win, where he topped Omar Ahmed Mohamed Khaled by just a half second.

The other triple-winner of the meet was Egyptian 22-year-old Mai Atef Abdelfattah, who paced some sprintier races. Atef Abdelfattah went 26.76 to win the 50 free in a touchout on opening night, then added the 50 and 100 breaststroke titles in 32.40 and 1:10.59, respectively.

Atef Abdelfattah had to eke out the 50 free over Jordan’s Talita Baqlah, a multiple event winner herself. Baqlah was .05 back in the 50 free, going 26.81, and she would go on to win the 100 free (57.67) and 50 fly (28.30), taking that 50 fly gold over the top of Atef Abdelfattah.

Egyptian 15-year-old Samiha Tarek Ahmad won two backstroke races, pacing the 50 (30.43) and 100 (1:05.62). In much the same way, her male teammate Omar Ahmed Mohamed Eissa swept the sprint fly races, going 24.82 in the 50 and 54.96 in the 100.

Other multiple event winners were Sami Sami Mohamed, who won the men’s 100 back (57.71) and 200 IM (2:07.35) and Ahmed Hamdy Salem, who took the 400 IM (4:29.79) and 200 fly (2:03.00).

Egypt managed to win 7 of the 8 relays (the event included mixed 400 medley and free relays), but Algeria stole one relay title, winning the men’s 400 free relay 3:24.76 to Egypt’s 3:25.34.

You can find full results of the meet here.

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abeer saied
10 years ago

The result of the event 28 (200m free style) women is wrong if you please try to correct it

Admin
Reply to  abeer saied
10 years ago

Hi Abeer, we don’t have access to correct the results – those are the official results as posted by meet hosts. You’ll want to contact the meet hosts to discuss further if you think there’s an error.

Al Dodson
10 years ago

Great job Egyptian Swimmers and coaches. As a former national team coach I am very proud of you.

About Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson

Jared Anderson swam for nearly twenty years. Then, Jared Anderson stopped swimming and started writing about swimming. He's not sick of swimming yet. Swimming might be sick of him, though. Jared was a YMCA and high school swimmer in northern Minnesota, and spent his college years swimming breaststroke and occasionally pretending …

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