ASIAN BEACH GAMES – BAHRAIN’S beach handball national team made a spectacular winning start to their medal bid yesterday at the sixth Asian Beach Games in Sanya, China.
The nationals overcame a tough challenge from the host Chinese 2-0 (14-8, 15-14) to claim their opening fixture in Group A of the men’s beach handball tournament’s preliminary round.
The kingdom’s representatives convincingly took the first set by the six-point margin, with an in-form Bilal Basham leading the way early. He scored nine of their total output in the period, including the Bahrainis’ first five points of the contest.
The nationals lost their momentum, however, to begin set two, and China’s Ma Huifeng gave the home team a commanding 6-0 advantage with just under three minutes elapsed.
But Bahrain roared back from there, and three unanswered goals – all two-pointers – from Mahdi Ali, Ali Alhayki, and Adam Alnasheet forged a 6-all deadlock. The Chinese regained control with successive two-point conversions from Cao Haoxiang and Huifeng putting them back up 10-6, but Ali replied with back-to-back spin shots to draw level once more.
Wang Kaiqiang and Haoxiang were then on target to give China a 14-10 lead with just over a minute remaining in the set, and it appeared that they would be sending the clash into a tiebreaker. But a pair of two-point goals late on from Basham and Alhayki made it 14-apiece with only seconds remaining before time expired.
That sent the proceedings into a golden goal to decide the period, and Alhayki delivered a quick knockout blow off an assist from Basham – sealing the narrow triumph for Bahrain.
Basham finished as the victors’ leading scorer with 11 points, while Ali added nine, Alhayki scored five, and Alnasheet contributed four.
Huifeng paced China in the loss with a game-high 14 points, while Haoxiang scored four.
The contest was attended by Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) board member and Bahrain Handball Federation president Ali Issa Ishaqi along with BOC board member and BOC Arab and international relations director Fajer Jassim Mohamed.
Also on hand were Bahrain’s chef de mission in Sanya and BOC executive director of operations Ahmed Abdulghaffar, and deputy chef de mission and BOC Arab and international relations head Maryam Mardana.
In other Group A fixtures yesterday, the Philippines beat Hong Kong 2-0, Iran defeated the Philippines 2-0, and China overcame Sri Lanka 2-0.
The Bahrainis are scheduled to return to action tomorrow when they take on their Filipino counterparts, scheduled for a 5am start, Bahrain time. They then face Sri Lanka on Friday before playing Iran on Sunday next week. The nationals complete their schedule in the preliminaries against Hong Kong on Monday.
Bahrain will be hoping to secure a spot amongst the top two in their group to make it through to the semi-finals, scheduled for Tuesday next week. The gold and bronze medal contests will then be held on the concluding day of this year’s Asian Beach Games on April 30.
Beach handball is one of the four sports the kingdom’s delegation are competing in Sanya.
The others are 3x3 basketball, which begins on Saturday; open water swimming under the sport of athletics, in which William Balzano and fellow-simmer Robert Bonsall will be flying the kingdom’s flag in their event on Sunday; and beach wrestling, in which Bahrain’s elite grapplers will be going for gold on Tuesday and Wednesday next week.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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