VOLLEYBALL – BAHRAIN bagged the silver medals last night in the first Arab Youth Volleyball Championship, which came to a close in Amman, Jordan.
The kingdom’s under-18 national team secured their place on the podium after finishing second amongst the seven participating squads on the final standings.
The Bahrainis ended their tournament schedule on Wednesday night with five wins from six matches, and needed to wait for yesterday’s results to learn of their official ranking.
Their only loss came against Saudi Arabia early in the competition. The Saudis captured the gold medals with an unbeaten record, having wrapped up their championship run last night with a resounding 3-0 (25-23, 25-18, 25-18) victory against Libya in their concluding game.
It was part of the tournament’s final day’s schedule of three fixtures. In the other contests, Kuwait swept past Qatar 3-0 (25-15, 25-22, 25-20) and hosts Jordan battled past Iraq in five sets 3-2 (25-17, 25-23, 19-25, 21-25, 15-13).
Despite their loss yesterday, the Libyans joined Saudi and Bahrain on the podium as bronze-medallists.
Following the matches, the podium-placers were presented their respective trophies and medals by Arab Volleyball Association (AVA) officials. Also in attendance was Bahrain Volleyball Association secretary general Feras Al Helwachi.
Bahrain’s five-win record from the tournament included three three-set sweeps and two four-set wins. They opened the competition with a four-set victory against Libya but then suffered a narrow defeat in five sets to Saudi Arabia. The Bahrainis bounced back from that setback with three clean sweeps against hosts Jordan and Gulf rivals Qatar and Kuwait, and then closed out their tournament campaign against Iraq with their other win in four sets. The championship was played in league format.
The Bahrainis were guided in the championship by head coach Fouad Abdulwahed. He had a 12-player squad featuring Ali Abdulla, Ali Talaq, Mohammed Al Haiki, Jassim Madan, Sayed Hassan Al Abbar, Ammar Youssef, Elias Sadeq, Ali Abdulameer, Hassan Sadeq, Ali Abbas, Mohammed Abdulnabi and Mohammed Qassim.
The same Bahrain team is set to compete in the 15th Asian Men’s U18 Volleyball Championship, which is being hosted by the kingdom from July 28 to August 4.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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