VOLLEYBALL – BAHRAIN named their final 12-player roster for the 15th Asian Men’s U18 Volleyball Championship, which will be hosted by the kingdom from Sunday.
The squad includes wing spikers Sayed Hasan Alabbar, Mohammed Alhayki, Mohammed Alsendi and Ali Sultan; opposites Jassim Madan and Ammar Ebrahim; middle blockers Hasan Ebrahim, Elyas Alaradi and Ali Jawad; setters Ali Thamer and Mohammed Abdali; and libero Ali Talaq.
The youth volleyball national team have intensified their preparations for the event, which will be taking place under the patronage of Supreme Council for Youth and Sport first deputy chairman, General Sports Authority chairman and Bahrain Olympic Committee president Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
The nationals played a friendly game against their counterparts from Saudi Arabia on Sunday night at the tournament’s main venue at Isa Sports City in Riffa, and won 3-0 (25-18, 25-14, 25-23). They are next scheduled to play another tune-up against Iran and also with defending champions Japan, who arrived in the kingdom yesterday.
The Bahrain line-up is the same as the one that took part in the Arab Youth Championship in Amman, Jordan, earlier this month. That squad, coached by Bahraini tactician Fouad Abdulwahed, came away with the silver medals.
National team director Abdulla Al Mahrous said that their preparations have been positive thus far and that the players are committed to giving double the effort in order to achieve new gains for Bahrain in the upcoming continental clash. He indicated that there has been an improvement in the squad’s technical level, especially after their podium finish in the Jordanian capital.
Al Mahrous added that the Bahrainis aim to reach the knockout stages of the upcoming tournament, and directed an invitation to all local volleyball fans to come and support the home side in their games.
The Bahrainis have entered an internal camp at Gulf Court Hotel in Sanabis in order to have the players fully focused on their upcoming confrontations, Al Mahrous noted.
Meanwhile, the Bahrain Volleyball Association (BVA) referees committee organised a workshop for electronic registration, conducted by international referee Ahmed Abdulaal at the BVA’s International Development Centre.
The registration mechanism will be used in the Asian championship and will be linked to video replay technology as well as to the tournament’s refereeing committee and statistics committee.
There are 16 nations in all, divided into four pools, for the preliminary round of the 15th Asian Men’s U18 Volleyball Championship.
Bahrain are in Pool A along with Thailand, Hong Kong-China and Australia. Pool B features Japan, Chinese Taipei, Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan. Pool C is composed of Iran, China, Lebanon and the Philippines; while Pool D includes India, South Korea, Kuwait and Pakistan. Games \begin from Sunday and will be held every day until August 4.
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