ARAB TIMES, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2015
42SPORTS
(Left to right): Fadi Boushari and Ahmed Daham in action.
Heartbreak for disqualified Boustani
Daham wins ‘King of Drift’ title for 2nd year in a rowDUBAI, Nov 22: Representing theUAE, Ahmad Daham produced amasterclass performance to claimthe coveted “King of Drift” title forthe second consecutive year, infront of an adrenaline-fuelled4,000 strong crowd at the Red BullCar Park Drift Final 2015, heldunder the umbrella of the DubaiMotor Festival at the Meydan carpark.
Daham secured the first placewith a score of 358 points in histuned Nissan Sylvia. He finishedahead of Oman’s Ali Al Balushi yetagain, having beaten him by onepoint last year. Al Balushi endedthe season with 335 points from theFinal. Jordan’s Rafat Haroon tookthe third spot on the podium with306 points.
Lebanese drifter Fadi ElBoustani’s night ended in heart-break when his car stalled at thestart line on his last run and in thefinal four. El Boustani had fiveminutes to address the mechanicalproblem, but luck was not on hisside and he was disqualified.Having entered the Final as a darkhorse, the Lebanese drifter cer-tainly won the crowd’s hearts,with a blistering run that earnedhim 370 points — the highestscore for a single run in this year’sFinal.
“To be crowned King of Drift isincredible, and to do it on such anextremely hard technical track isunbelievable,” commented AhmadDaham after the event. “The otherguys pushed me all the way to thefinish and I really had to be on topof my game. I couldn’t relax for
even a second.” The Final brought together fif-
teen 15 drifters hailing fromTunisia, Kuwait, Mauritius,Lebanon, Jordan, Oman, Egypt,Qatar, Iran and the United ArabEmirates.
The tough job of separating thecompetitors went to judges IssaBen Dalmouk, Robbie Nishida,Nikita Shikov and Dai Yoshihara,who watched closely for the 7 keyjudging criteria. A maximum of 80points was allocated to driftingskills during the first and secondsections, while the car’s looks anddesign accounted for up to 60points, with another 60 points allo-cated to the driver’s proximity tothe pendulum ‘clipping point’. Tiresmoke, car sound and performancein the ‘Box’ - a tight enclosure thedrifters need to do a ‘donut’ in -each contributed 40 points to thetotal score.
The Red Bull Car Park DriftFinal was held in partnership withFord Middle East, Aramex Shopand Ship, Pirelli, MBC Action, AlArabiya 99 and Meydan.
DRIFTING
RBCPD 2015 winners
Canadians Weaver and Poje win gold in ice dancing
Radionova leads Russian sweep, Fernandez tops menMOSCOW, Nov 22, (AFP): ElenaRadionova lead a women’s podiumsweep by the hosts at the Cup ofRussia figure skating Grand Prix inMoscow on Saturday as world cham-pion Javier Fernandez won the men’sevent.
Radionova, 16, took gold ahead ofcompatriot Evgenia Medvedeva andOlympic champion AdelinaSotnikova, who was competing ather first international competitionsince missing last season throughinjury.
National champion Radionova,who had seized the lead afterFriday’s short programme, presenteda solid free skate to the soundtrack‘Titanic’, scoring 139.53 points foran overall total of 211.32.
Medvedeva, 16, held her secondposition despite scoring highest inthe free skate, 139.73, to finish 4.56points behind Radionova with206.76.
Both Radionova, who finishedthird in the Cup of China, andMedvedeva, winner of SkateAmerica, now look set to compete inthe Grand Prix final in Barcelonanext month.
Sotnikova, 19, managed to jumpinto third position from fourth afterthe short programme with her freeskate to Lara Fabian’s ‘Je SuisMalade’.
In the men’s section, SpaniardFernandez, second after the shortprogramme, blew away the opposi-tion with his dynamic free skate toFrank Sinatra’s ‘Guys and Dolls’despite having a point deducted.
The 24-year-old reigning worldand European champion scored184.44 for the free skate and 271.43
overall.“It wasn’t my best skating,” admit-
ted Fernandez, who also won the Cupof China.
“But I hope that two victories atthe Grand Prix stages will help meperform well at the GP finals inBarcelona.”
Russia’s 17-year-old AdianPitkeev, who won the short pro-gramme, finished second over 20points behind the Spaniard, withAmerican Adam Rippon third twopoints further back.
In pairs, Russia’s Ksenia Stolbovaand Fedor Klimov, the Olympic sil-ver medallists, underlined their dom-ination with an almost flawless freeskate to ‘Man and Shadow’ by DannyElfman.
“It’s terrific to win especially infront of our home crowd,” Klimovsaid.
“We’re happy with the result as wekept alive our chance of a place in theGrand Prix finals with this win,” headded, after they finished fourth inSkate America.
They got an overall 214.70 to fin-ish 6.68 ahead of fellow RussiansYuko Kavaguti and AlexanderSmirnov, who held second despitesome uncertain landings.
Chinese duo Cheng Peng and HaoZhang finished third.
In ice dancing, Canadians KaitlynWeaver and Andrew Poje, added asecond gold after Skate Canada,scoring 173.58 to finish 1.97 aheadof 2014 world champions AnnaCappellini and Luca Lanotte ofItaly.
The final stop in the six-legGrand Prix series will be nextweek’s NHK Trophy in Naganowith the top six skaters in the fourdisciplines qualifying for the GrandPrix final in Barcelona from Dec10-13.
US Polina Edmunds performs during the ladies free skating at the ISU GrandPrix Figure skating Rostelekom Cup in Moscow on Nov 21. (AFP)
FIGURE SKATING
