Egyptian mixed team win in Rabat qualifies Chad for Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games

Youssof Tolba and Reem Mansour defeated a Namibian pairing of Quinn Reddig and Adriaan Grobler, 6-2, to take the recurve mixed team gold medal at the 2019 African Games in Rabat, Morocco.

“I’m very happy. I felt the pressure. I’m glad the last end went well,” said Tolba. “I hope we can prepare for Tokyo and let’s see what we can do there.”

It qualified Egypt two places – one man and one woman – to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

The result also affected the allocation of individual quota places. Cote d’Ivoire and Tunisia had already taken the two available women’s spots by putting archers into the final.

Esmei Anne-Marcelle Diombo of Cote d’Ivoire won recurve women’s gold in Rabat. She defeated Rihab Elwalid, 7-1.

The men’s quota situation was less settled.

Tunisia’s Mohamed Hammed qualified a space by making the final against Egyptian archer Sherif Mohamed.

Sherif, the third seed, ended up taking recurve men’s gold in a shoot-off, nine to eight.

“I knew I could shoot a 10. I knew I could shoot a good shot. The moment I went into anchor, I felt completely comfortable. The alignment was perfect,” he said.

“I knew the arrow was going good. So, I just aimed in the 10, extended and release. It went in the nine. It was good enough!”

With Egypt now qualified through the mixed team competition, the men’s place that would have gone to the winner is reallocated down to the highest-finishing athlete from a non-qualified country. That was Chad’s Israel Madaye, after he finished fourth, losing the bronze medal match to Tolba.

The team from Chad was ecstatic.

Egypt also took gold medals in the recurve men‘s team and recurve women’s team competitions at these first African Games to feature an archery event.

Both Chad and Tunisia are set to make their Olympic archery debuts next summer.

Cote d’Ivoire’s Rene Philippe Kouassi competed at the last two Games in 2016 and 2012 – but the country has never had a female participant before. (The country did have a spot qualified for Rio but did not end up taking part.)

Egypt has competed in the archery competitions at every Olympic Games since 2000.

The archery competitions at the 2019 African Games take place on 26-30 August in Rabat, Morocco.