ASIAN BEACH GAMES – BAHRAIN have completed their roster of 20 athletes who will be going for gold in the sixth Asian Beach Games in Sanya, China, scheduled to take place from Wednesday next week to April 30.
The Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) confirmed the line-ups for both the kingdom’s beach wrestling and open water swimming teams, who will be joining their countrymen in 3x3 basketball and beach handball.
The Bahrainis are amongst 45 delegations from across the continent who will be competing in the highly anticipated Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) event.
The team is headed by chef de mission and BOC executive director of operations Ahmed Abdulghaffar, along with deputy chef de mission and BOC Arab and international relations head Maryam Mardana.
A number of the kingdom’s athletes and members of the administrative team for Sanya departed yesterday for China. They were scheduled to take a bus to Doha, Qatar, from where they will fly to East Asia.
Bahrain’s competitors will be flying the kingdom’s flag in the four aforementioned sports, which are part of a total of 14 comprising 15 disciplines and 61 events.
Bahrain’s beach wrestling squad is composed of four elite men’s grapplers, spearheaded by world bronze-medallist and silver-medallist from last weekend’s Asian championship Shamil Sharipov, who will be aiming for the title in the men’s 90kg weight class. He will be joined by world under-23 bronze-medallist and Asian silver-medallist Magomed Sharipov in the men’s 90kg category, Asian silver-medallist Magomedrasul Asluev in the men’s 80kg division, and world under-20 and Asian bronze-medallist Alibeg Alibegov in the men’s 70kg class.
Meanwhile, Bahrain will have a pair of medal hopefuls in open water swimming, which is one of two disciplines under the sport of aquatics, with the other being water polo.
The kingdom’s tandem includes Robert Bonsall and William Balzano. Their event is set to be a five-kilometre race.
Bahrain’s beach wrestling and open water swimming teams are joined – as previously reported in the GDN – by the 3x3 basketball national team quartet of Bogdan Dragovic, Milos Supica, Nasser Al Mosawi, and Austin Ajukwa; and a 10-member beach handball national squad, comprising Bilal Basham, Adam Isa Alnasheet, Ali Alhayki, Mahdi Ali, Ali Almawlani, Sayed Ahmed Faiq, Kamil Ali, Komail Mahfoudh, and goalkeepers Abdulla Alzaimour and Ali Ghassan.
Aside from the four sports Bahrain are competing in, also set to be a part of the sixth Asian Beach Games are beach soccer, beach kabaddi, beach athletics, dragon boat, jiu-jitsu, sailing, speed sports climbing, teqball, aquathlon triathlon, and beach volleyball.
This year’s edition of the Asian Beach Games will be the first time the multi-sport event is to be held in a decade – with the previous occasion happening in 2016 in Da Nang, Vietnam. Bahrain also participated then, winning two gold medals – one in bodybuilding through Ali Abdulrasool and another in jiu-jitsu with Ali Monfaradi.
The kingdom’s senior men’s beach handball national team were also in action. They finished an impressive fifth overall behind the top three of Qatar, Oman, and Pakistan, and fourth-placed Vietnam.
In the past five editions of the Asian Beach Games, Bahrain have bagged a total of 11 medals, including seven gold, three silver, and one bronze.
The national delegation’s best-ever participation was in the fourth Asian Beach Games in Phuket, Thailand, in 2014, when they came away with five gold and two silver medals.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
&uuid=(email))