A third gold for Bahrain's Yavi.. and Karim grants the UAE its first title..

This is Yavi's third gold in the current Asian Games, following her victories in the 10,000m and 3,000m steeplechase races.

Yavi (26 years old), born in Kenya, is considered one of the world's most prominent runners, holding the gold medal of the Paris 2024 Olympics and the gold of the Budapest 2023 World Championships in the 3,000m steeplechase.

Bahrain raised its tally to nine gold medals (8 in athletics), two silvers, and three bronzes, ranking seventh in the overall standings, which is topped as usual by China with 131 golds by a massive margin over host Japan (41).

First Gold for the UAE

Emirati runner Mariam Karim granted the UAE its first gold medal in the tournament by winning the 400m hurdles race.

Karim sealed the race in the final forty meters, clocking 54.31 seconds, to break the previous games' record held by Bahrain's Kemi Adekoya (54.45) in the last Hangzhou edition.

Karim (18 years old) finished ahead of Kazakhstan's Adelina Zemis (54.58s) and India's Vithya Ramraj (54.75s).

The UAE had opened its medal tally in the tournament through Sulaiman Abdulrahman, who won the silver medal in the men's 400m final.

Mohammed Al-Murr, President of the UAE Athletics Federation, said, "Mariam Karim achieved an Asian Games record, alongside achieving the best world under-20 performance in 2026, while still eighteen years old, confirming that we are facing a promising talent possessing the qualifications to compete at the highest levels."

Karim, much like runner Sulaiman Abdulrahman (19 years old) who won the men's 400m silver at the same games, is a product of sports naturalization in the Gulf state issued by a law in 2018 to benefit from foreign talents in external competitions.

Al-Murr continued, "This achievement reflects the success of investing in talents and continuous work to develop Emirati athletics, and what has been achieved reinforces our ambitions to move forward toward competing in world championships and tournaments."

Men's 400m Hurdles for Hemeida

In the men's event, Qatar's Bassem Hemeida claimed the gold, making up for his deficit in the final meters behind Japan's Taiju Goto, to clock 47.82 seconds and snatch the third gold for the "Al-Adaam" in the games.

Hemeida (26 years old) finished ahead of Goto (47.93s) and Taiwan's Lin Chung-wei (48.74s).

Injury ruled out the other Qatari runner, Abderrahman Samba, one of the prominent contenders for the title.

Hemeida told Qatar's beIN Sports channel, "We prepared for this race for a long time in several training camps. The absence of Abderrahman Samba affected me a lot because he is like an older brother to me."

Regarding the withdrawal of the pole vault champion, world champion Mutaz Barshim, he added, "He is a role model and a legend. He was the man who made history, and we followed in his footsteps."

Qatar had won two gold medals in shooting through Rashid Al-Athba (skeet) and the men's skeet team.

Qatar had won two gold medals in shooting through Rashid Al-Athba (skeet) and the men's skeet team.

Qatari Zakaria Ibrahim won the 3,000m steeplechase bronze with a time of 8:18:13 minutes, behind Japan's Ryuji Mura (8:17:36m), who broke the games record, and his compatriot Ryoma Aoki (8:17:60m).

Gulf Handball Gold

The Qatar and Bahrain national teams will duel for the handball gold after defeating South Korea 32-30 and host Japan 35-31 respectively in the semi-finals.