After winning three medals in their first week at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics last week, Arab countries upped the ante and won three more medals this past week, including their first two gold medals.

Both gold medals represented landmark achievements for their countries, as Oussama Mellouli won the first swimming medal for Tunisia and Rashid Ramzi won the the first-ever medal for his native Bahrain, in the sport of track and field.

Mellouli of Tunisia

Mellouli came back from an 18-month doping suspension to gain redemption, as he put it, by defeating Australian favorite Grant Hackett in the men’s 1500-meter freestyle race. Mellouli’s time for the 30-lap race was an African record of 14 minutes, 40.84 seconds. It was Tunisia’s first gold medal since 1968 in any Olympic event.

Mellouli tested positive for banned amphetamines at a match in Indiana in 2006 and blamed the positive test on the drug Adderall, which he said he took to avoid falling asleep so he could do a report for a class at the University of Southern California, where he attended college.

The suspension was a blessing in disguise for Mellouli, who used the time to train and reflect, coming back stronger than ever before. Hackett, who holds the world record in the 1500 meters, was complimentary of Mellouli’s performance and said he didn’t expect him to show such great endurance in his comeback win.

Ramzi of Bahrain

Ramzi’s gold also came in the 1500 meters, of the track and field variety, that is. It was the first medal of any kind for the 250-square-mile island nation with 708,000 residents near the coasts of Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

The win wasn’t a big surprise for Ramzi, who won the 800-meter and 1500-meter world championships in 2005 and was a favorite going into the race. He missed qualifying for the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece and used it as motivation to train harder and to become a better runner. Ramzi works as a palace guard in Bahrain when he’s not training, where he has attained the rank of sergeant.

Benhassi of Morocco

The third medal, won by Morocco’s Hasna Benhassi in the women’s track 800 meters event, was a little disappointing considering her silver medal finish in 2004 in Athens, but still a tremendous accomplishment considering it was her country’s only medal in the 2008 Olympics so far.

The Summer Olympics will conclude on Sunday August 24, 2008 with the closing ceremony at the Beijing National Stadium.