Bahrain steamrolled Kazakhstan, 45-22, in their opening Group C game to make a perfect start to their campaign in the handball competition of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, yesterday.
The kingdom’s team dominated the match throughout as they raced to an 8-1 lead by the ninth minute of the game and led 11-4 by the time the first half was 15 minutes old.
By the time the 30-minute first half ended, Bahrain were leading 22-11 and had an iron grip on the game.
The Kazakhs made a valiant effort to fight their way back in the second half but it was to no avail as Bahrain led 33-17 with 15 minutes left and eventually sealed victory by a whopping 23-goal margin.
“It is good to start the tournament with a convincing victory,” Bahrain head coach Aron Kristjansson told the GDN by phone from Hangzhou.
“We started strongly by taking an 8-1 lead very quickly and continued to build on that advantage throughout the game to win in the end by 23 goals.”
Kristjansson, 51, who played as a centre-back for his native Iceland for ten years from 1993 and previously also coached his country’s national side, had told the GDN before yesterday’s game that Bahrain would look to impose themselves on their opponents.
“We want to start strongly, despite having been at a slight disadvantage leading up to this first game because we had only four training sessions with our whole team since four players, who were contracted to play in the Saudi professional league, missed our training camp in Hungary last month and only re-joined the squad just before we arrived here in Hangzhou,” he said.
Kristjansson had also pointed out that the Kazakhs were used to the Russian style of handball, which was different from how the Bahrainis play.
“Kazakhstan have not participated in a tournament recently but they have players who participated in the Russian league,” he said.
“But we will concentrate only on our own game and, with four of our key players back after their stints in Saudi, we will try to bond and grow as a team with every match in this competition.”
As it turned out, Bahrain completely outclassed their opponents and head into their second game with Uzbekistan on Wednesday brimming with confidence.
After the victorious encounter with Kazakhstan, Kristjansson said he and his players would use the two-day break until the Uzbekistan game to get in some more practice sessions so that the four returning players would feel more in sync with the rest of the team.
“We will also use this time to focus on some areas I and the rest of the coaching staff felt we need to improve upon,” he explained.
Kristjansson is in his second stint as Bahrain head coach and steered the team to its first-ever silver medal at the 2018 Asian Games.
His track record across his two coaching stints is impressive: the silver medal at the Asian Games four years ago was followed by the team qualifying for the Olympics for the very first time which saw Bahrain finishing 8th at the 2020 Tokyo Olympiad in the top 16 in the last two World Cups.
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