BEIRUT, July 15: Algeria's Baya Rahouli ran the 100 metre hurdles in record time yesterday to win her third gold and put her country on top of the medal table at the Arab Games.Meanwhile, Qatar's Ahmad Abdel Karim set a new meet record in pole vault and Qatar ended the second day of the Games with five golds behind Algeria's six.Morocco is in the third position with four golds, seven silvers and four bronzes.Rahouli, 18, who took the gold in women's long jump on Sunday, also won the 100 metres yesterday with a dash of 11.58 seconds.She completed the hurdles in 14.11 seconds to eclipse a 12-year-old Arab Games record of 14.18 seconds set by compatriot Nassira Ashir in Algiers in 1985.The women's 800 metres winner, Nouriah Binaida, accused Moroccan competitors, who won the bronze and silver, of jostling and pushing her.``I don't want to win if they have to do this,'' she told reporters.Meanwhile, Karim's record-setting pole vault of 5.22 meters smashed a 1992 record of 5.15 meters.Qatari men swept the short sprints, taking the gold and silver in 100 metres and the gold in the 110-metre hurdles, 400 metres and shot put. Saad Al-Kawari ran the premier sprint event in 10.40 seconds.Rahouli, the Algerian star, said her next aim is to train for the upcoming World Championships in Athens.Sudan, which is participating in only five events, received good news when its track and field athlete, Mohammed Yacoub, won the 800 meters silver.The 16-day Games are meant to increase Arab brotherhood, but that idea took a drubbing after host Lebanon refused to let Iraq participate because of pressure from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.The oil-rich Gulf states, which have been contributing heavily to Lebanon's post-war reconstruction, still have not forgiven Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which led to the 1991 Gulf war. Kuwait had threatened to walk out if Iraqi athletes came.Arab league secretary-general Esmat Abdel-Meguid who tried to broker a compromise said he accepted the Lebanese decision, saying ``The least harmful (way) had to be chosen.'Lebanon's foreign minister Fares Bweiz said inviting Iraq would have meant losing the participation of countries whose relations with Lebanon are of ``paramount importance.''Iraq retaliated Monday by announcing that a trade delegation that was to have visited Beirut next month would not make the trip.The official Iraqi news agency said the delegation had been invited by Lebanese industrialists.On Saturday, the Iraqi newspaper Babil called for halting trade talks with Lebanon to retaliate for its decision on the Games. The paper is published by Odai Hussein, the son of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
