HANDBALL – BAHRAIN enjoyed a rousing start to their bid for an historic maiden gold medal yesterday in the men’s handball tournament of the 20th Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan.
The kingdom’s senior men’s national team were in a class of their own as they routed Kazakhstan 43-20 in their opening Group B fixture of the nine-nation competition’s preliminary round, played at Toyoda Gosei Memorial Gymnasium in the city of Inazawa at Aichi Prefecture.
The Bahrainis took control of the contest early on and never wavered. They closed the first half with an 8-2 run for a commanding 20-8 cushion at the interval and then built leads as big as 24 goals en route to sealing the big result.
Bahrain Olympic Committee (BOC) vice-president and the kingdom’s delegation head in Aichi-Nagoya Shaikh Isa bin Ali bin Khalifa Al Khalifa was in attendance for the match. Also on hand were BOC board member and Bahrain Handball Federation president Ali Issa Ishaqi and other officials from the kingdom’s delegation.
Bahrain are looking to capture the elusive Asiad men’s handball title for the first time. They are repeat silver-medallists, having lost to three-time defending champions Qatar in the final of the Asian Games’ 2018 edition in Jakarta-Palembang, Indonesia, and then again in 2022 in Hangzhou, China. The nationals were also bronze-medallists in the 2014 tournament in Incheon, South Korea.
This time, however, they are looking to strike gold and add to their other momentous success of winning their first-ever crown earlier this year in the Asian Men’s Handball Championship, held in Kuwait City, Kuwait.
The Bahrainis are scheduled to return to action today against Iran in a game that is scheduled for an 8.30am start, Bahrain time. They then face South Korea on Wednesday at 11.30am, after which they conclude their Group B schedule against Kuwait on Friday at 7.30am. Both times are also Bahrain.
The quarter-finals are then scheduled for Saturday and then the semis will be held on Monday next week. That will set the stage for the gold and bronze medal games next Tuesday, which will be the concluding day of the men’s handball tournament in Aichi-Nagoya.
Group A in the competition features Qatar, China, Hong Kong, and hosts Japan.
In other games yesterday, the Japanese edged past their Chinese counterparts 31-27 while Qatar cruised against Hong Kong 40-17.
Salman Alshowaikh was in top form yesterday for Bahrain and he helped them make a strong start against Kazakhstan, scoring six of their first 10 goals. The rest of the kingdom’s squad followed his lead as the Bahrainis gradually extended their advantage, which ballooned to 20 goals, 35-15, on an Ahmed Eid conversion with nine minutes left to play.
Mohammed Rabia was then on target for the nationals to give them their biggest lead of the clash at 40-16, and Bahrain did well to close things out for their impressive curtain-raising victory.
Alshowaikh finished as the Bahrainis’ leading scorer with nine goals, while Ahmed Fadhel added six and Ahmed Kadhem five. Three players fired in four each, including Eid, Jassim Khamis, and Hassan Mirza, while Abdulla Abdulkarim added three goals, Mohammed Habib Ahmed had two, and Sayed Ali Shubbar, Ali Mahmood, and inspirational skipper Hussain Al Sayyad all registered a goal apiece.
Bahrain’s number one goalkeeper and veteran Mohammed Abdulhussain also had a fine performance, making 12 saves from 20 Kazakh shots.
Askan Oxikbayev and Rustam Andrussyak paced Kazakhstan in their loss with four goals each.
The nationals are coached by Swede Robert Hedin, who helped guide them to their continental championship as well as to the gold medals at the fourth GCC Games in Doha, Qatar also this year, as well as at the sixth Islamic Solidarity Games in November of last year in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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