It was another day in which the weather played its part, with beach modern pentathlon postponed to tomorrow morning due to an afternoon shower, but it proved historic nonetheless as beach athletics was pioneered for the first time, with two field events taking place ahead of sprint and cross-country races later in the Games.

Iranian Sobha Taherkhani leapt to long jump success with a clearance of 7.28 metres, the competition's only mark over seven metres to push Syria's Amin Al Salameh into second place. 

Ahmad Ghotoum of Kuwait triumphed in the shot put, hurling out to 18.69m to edge out compatriot Marsham Mohammad by a mere two centremetres. 

Ivan Ivanov of Kazkahstan placed third behind the two Kuwaitis in the shot put
©Phuket 2014





While jumping onto sand certainly seemed familiar, the sandy path the long jumpers had to sprint along to reach the pit was certainly not, and nor was the shot put circle, with the woodland and beach backdrop very different to a typical track and field one.

But it was a good advert, nonetheless, for an innovative form of the sport that is expected to feature at the inaugural World Beach Games in 2017.

Speaking of innovative sport, Hong Kong's Luk Chum Yin broke the Thai monopoly is skateboarding by winning the "Game of Skate" competition, where competitors receive one of the five letters of the word "skate" every time they fail to land a trick.

When a player has received all five letters they are eliminated from the competition. something that happened to runner-up Thailand's Sutat Siriwat when his dominant opponent had successful pulled off all but two of his five efforts. 

Luk Chum Yin of Hong Kong dominated the "Game of Skate" final ©Phuket 2014



But the host nation were not to be denied in woodball, winning two more titles to take their overall tally to six out of the eight available in the sport.

Klayut Mongkholsamai and Praewpan Chaithong took the respective male and female strokeplay finals.

There was also success for Indonesia as 19-year-old Aero Sutan Aswar added endurance jet-ski gold to the silver and bronze medals he picked up earlier in the Games. 

Away from the medals, there was another rare glimpse of host nation disappointment as Thailand lost to Iran in the quarter-finals of the beach soccer competition.

United Arab Emirates and Japan beat Uzbekistan and China respectively, while Vietnam required overtime to overcome Oman and duly take the fourth semi-final spot.