Bahrain’s handball team returned to the kingdom yesterday after an 11-day training camp in Hungary ahead of the upcoming Asian Games which start on September 23 in Hangzhou, China.
An 18-member squad, chaperoned by head coach Aron Kristjansson, travelled to Balatonboglar, a resort town about 150km from the Hungarian capital, Budapest, on September 2 to train at the National Academy of Handball as part of their preparations for the Asian Games.
“We had a good camp during which we also played four practice matches against local teams,” Kristjansson, 51, who played as a centre-back for his native Iceland from 1993 to 2003, told the GDN last night.
“But our preparations have been affected somewhat by the fact that some of our players were still nursing injuries that they picked up during the last season. Additionally, four of our players are contracted to play in the Saudi professional league so they couldn’t be with us in Hungary – they will join us now after they’ve played their last matches in that league.
“Also, two of our players in the Hungary training camp also got injured during one of the practice games we played.”
Despite all the setbacks, Kristjansson, who is in his second stint as Bahrain head coach and steered the team to its first-ever silver medal at the Asian Games in 2018 during his first tenure, said he was quite happy with the make-up of his squad and was confident that it would do well in the Asiad.
“It’s a good mix of experience and youth,” he said.
“They’re a very strong team, they’re working very hard in training and always try their best in competitions. So I’m pretty hopeful that they’ll acquit themselves well in the Asian Games.
“Our worst enemy at the moment, as I said, is this spate of injuries from last season. Hopefully, we should have most of our players in fighting trim by the time we play our first game.”
Given Kristjansson’s track record with the Bahrain team across his two stints as head coach – the silver medal at the 2018 Asian Games was followed by a first-ever qualification for the Olympics with Bahrain finishing 8th at the 2020 Tokyo Olympiad and the team has finished in the top 16 in the last two World Cups – his confidence in his team’s ability to perform well in Hangzhou is not misplaced.
“As I said, we have a strong team,” Kristjansson said.
“And, overall, we have improved year-on-year over the last five years. Lots of new young players have come up and we are constantly seeking to increase the player pool.
“So, in the previous Asian Games, we were unlucky to finish with a silver medal because we were gunning for gold, we were playing to win the tournament.
“We will play this tournament with the same mindset. We will play to win and, if fortune favours us, we will, hopefully, win the gold medal.”
Bahrain have been slotted in Group C in the preliminary round, along with Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
They play their first game against Kazakhstan on September 24 and will face Uzbekistan on September 27.
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