Two hurdle racers will carry Qatar’s medal hopes in the 400m hurdles final on Friday.

Ismail Doudai Abakar set a personal best time to join fellow Qatari Abderrahman Samba in qualifying for the finals of the 400 metre hurdles event at the ongoing World Athletics Championships in Tokyo.

The 21-year-old clocked 47.61 seconds to qualify from the second semi-finals on Wednesday after Samba won the first heat to secure another automatic qualification.

Abakar finished behind Ezekiel Nathaniel of Nigeria, who finished with the day’s quickest timing of 47.47 seconds.

Earlier, Asian champion Samba won the first heat with a time of 47.63 seconds, ahead of reigning world number one and record holder Karsten Warholm of Norway, who finished at 47.72 seconds.

Samba had also advanced from the preliminaries as the winner of his heat.

Team Qatar’s third hurdler, Bassem Hemeida, did not make the cut from a race with reigning Olympic gold medalist Rai Benjamin and Brazil’s Alisson Dos Santos — two of the fastest hurdlers ever — who secured the two automatic spots.

Hemeida’s timing of 48.29 seconds fell short of the two non-automatic qualification times.

Finals of the event are scheduled to be held on Friday at 3:15 PM Doha Time in Tokyo’s National Stadium.

Samba, the Asian record holder and fifth-fastest overall in the 400 metres category, will be looking to repeat or better his third-place finish at the World Championships 2019 in Doha.

Similarly, young Abakar will look to continue his upward trajectory, which has seen him improve his personal best record five times this year.

Hemeida, meanwhile, will return to action on Sunday to join the likes of Samba, Abakar and Ammar Ismail in a studded 4×400 metre relay squad as Qatar looks to qualify for the event’s finals on debut.

Team Qatar’s 400 metre sprinter Ismail, pole vaulter Seif Mohammed, 110 metre hurdler Omar Abakar, and 800 metre runner Ibrahim Abbas Chuot had already bowed out of their respective singles’ events before Hemeida.