Paris (AFP)
The Moroccan and Egyptian football teams are close to an unprecedented medal for the Arabs in the Olympic Games, after qualifying for the semi-finals, while the Pharaohs of handball reached the quarter-finals in the Paris Games.
The Arabs’ balance remained frozen in the games that continue until August 11, with the silver medal for Tunisian fencer Fares Ferjani and the bronze medal for Egyptian fencer Mohamed El Sayed.
Morocco achieved a crushing victory over the United States 4-0, while Egypt came from behind with a hard-fought victory over Paraguay on penalties, qualifying for the third time in its history, after finishing the 1928 and 1964 editions in fourth place.
Iraq was the last Arab team to reach the football semi-finals in Athens 2004 when it finished fourth.
The Moroccan national team, the African Under-23 champion, continued its strong performances and reached the football semi-finals for the first time in its history, when it crushed its American counterpart by four goals at the Parc des Princes stadium in Paris in front of more than 45 thousand spectators.
Sofiane Rahimi (29 from a penalty kick), Ilyas Akhomach (63), Achraf Hakimi (70) and substitute Mehdi Mouhoub (90+1 from a penalty kick) took turns in Morocco’s quartet.
Morocco, which is participating in the Olympics for the eighth time in its history, will meet Spain, which defeated Japan 3-0 in Lyon.
Pyramids striker Ibrahim Adel saved Egypt once again when he led them to the semi-finals by scoring the equaliser two minutes before the end of regular time and the fifth penalty kick.
Paraguay were on their way to victory with a goal from their captain Diego Gomez (71), but Adel equalized in the 88th minute.
In handball, the Egyptian men reached the quarter-finals after defeating Norway 26-25.
Egypt is making a beautiful journey in this edition, after defeating Hungary 35-32, losing with difficulty to the strong Denmark 27-30, and escaping victory against France (26-26).
In athletics, Bahraini Birhanu Palyu achieved his best time this season, but he finished 17th in the 10,000m race.
Moroccan runner Anas Saai reached the semi-finals of the 1500m race. Saai came in fourth in the first heat of the first round with a time of 3:36.44 minutes, in a race that sees defending champion Norwegian Jacob Ingebrigtsen as the strongest candidate to win, along with Briton Josh Kerr.
Al-Saai is the only Arab participating in the 1500m race, whose record is held by his compatriot Hicham El Guerrouj, with a time of 3:26.00 minutes, since July 14, 1998.
The Egyptian Mustafa El Gamal was eliminated from the first round of the hammer throw competition, coming in fourteenth place, the penultimate (70.09 m).
In fencing, Egypt was eliminated from the quarter-finals of the team sabre competition by France 39-45, and in the matches to determine the rankings, it lost to Kazakhstan 21-36 and then Venezuela 35-41.
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