2002 Arab Junior Athletics Championships Explained

10th Arab Junior Athletics Championships
Host City:	Cairo, Egypt
Events:	43
Previous:	2000 Damascus
Next:	2004 Damascus

The 2002 Arab Junior Athletics Championships was the tenth edition of the international athletics competition for under-20 athletes from Arab countries. It took place in Cairo, Egypt – the city hosted the tournament once before in 1986. A total of 43 athletics events were contested, 22 for men and 21 for women. After an absence in 2000, regional powers Morocco, Algeria and Qatar all returned to the tournament.^[1]

Morocco topped the table with twelve gold medals, followed by Egypt which won eight titles. Tunisia and Saudi Arabia each won six medals, with Tunisia mainly having success in women's events and Saudi Arabia winning only men's medals. A women's pole vault was added to the programme, leaving just the steeplechase as the remaining event contested by men but not women. Junior implements were used in the throws events for the first time.^[1]

Morocco's Yassine Bensghir completed a men's middle-distance double and was the World Junior Champion that same year. Ismail Ahmed Ismail was third to him in the 800 metres, but went on to much greater success as a senior, winning Sudan's first Olympic medal in 2008.^[2] The sprints saw the rise of Yahya Habeeb and Yahya Al-Ghahes of Saudi Arabia (both future Asian champions). The men's throws saw the emergence of a new generation of athletes who would dominate regionally: Sultan Al-Hebshi and Ali Al-Zinkawi later won Asian titles in their disciplines,^[3] while the Egyptian trio of Yasser Ibrahim Farag, Omar Ahmed El Ghazaly and Mohsen Mohamed Anani later won gold medals at the African Championships in Athletics in the shot put, discus and hammer throw, respectively.^[4]

In women's events, sprint medallists Muna Jabir Adam and Gretta Taslakian each later became continental medallists in their specialities. Mariem Alaoui Selsouli was a medallist in both long-distance events and later won medals at the IAAF World Indoor Championships.

Medal summary

Men

100 metres	10.62	10.63		10.68
200 metres	21.32	21.97		22.02
400 metres	46.88	47.81		47.84
800 metres	1:48.23	1:48.63		1:49.55
1500 metres	3:53.10	3:54.23		3:54.75
5000 metres	14:10.94	14:16.09		14:29.55
10,000 metres	30:39.43	30:59.64		31:47.51
110 m hurdles	14.41	14.51		14.62
400 m hurdles	51.46	52.26		52.60
3000 metres steeplechase	8:50.68	8:57.09		9:08.69
4 × 100 m relay	40.35	41.39		41.61
4 × 400 m relay	3:11.99	3:12.30		3:15.34
10,000 m walk	46:39.6	47:52.9		48:05.6
High jump	2.06 m	2.03 m		2.03 m
Pole vault	4.70 m	4.60 m	Not awarded
Long jump	7.46 m	7.27 m		7.19 m
Triple jump	15.31 m	15.20 m		15.01 m
Shot put	19.48 m CR	19.23 m		18.78 m
Discus throw	57.37 m CR	56.47 m		53.09 m
Hammer throw	75.89 m CR	70.04 m		57.17 m
Javelin throw	67.90 m	57.63 m		56.26 m
Decathlon	6557 pts	6180 pts		5949 pts

Women

100 metres	12.32	12.65		12.68
200 metres	24.88w	25.43w		25.95w
400 metres	56.34	56.83		58.15
800 metres	2:09.88 CR	2:11.27		2:11.27
1500 metres	4:28.99 CR	4:30.48		4:31.91
3000 metres	9:35.99 CR	9:39.69		9:41.90
5000 metres	18:04.97	18:05.54		18:09.93
100 m hurdles	14.54	14.61		14.99
400 m hurdles	62.10	64.79		65.76
4 × 100 m relay	49.31	50.05		50.43
4 × 400 m relay	3:52.66 CR	3:54.40		3:55.60
5000 m walk	26:51.2	28:41.6		31:32.9
High jump	1.73 m CR	1.66 m		1.60 m
Pole vault	3.40 m	3.00 m	Not awarded
Long jump	5.96 m CR	5.83 m		5.67 m
Triple jump	12.60 m	12.39 m		12.10 m
Shot put	14.20 m CR	13.48 m		12.26 m
Discus throw	47.00 m CR	46.87 m		39.89 m
Hammer throw	48.64 m CR	47.18 m		42.50 m
Javelin throw	47.21 m CR	40.14 m		39.66 m
Heptathlon	4555 pts CR	4141 pts		4086 pts

Notes and References

http://www.gbrathletics.com/ic/arj.htm Pan Arab Junior Championships
https://web.archive.org/web/20200417171054/https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/is/ismail-ahmed-ismail-1.html Ismail Ahmed Ismail
http://www.gbrathletics.com/ic/asc.htm Asian Championships
http://www.gbrathletics.com/ic/afc.htm African Championships