Iranian handball boys eyeing glory at inaugural Asian U-17 Ch’ship
Iran will be among the hopefuls at the inaugural Asian Men’s U-17 Handball Championship, starting Monday in Amman, Jordan.
Iran is in Group D of the competition alongside Asian handball powerhouse South Korea, Maldives, and Syria.
Iranian boys will get their underway against Maldives on the opening day of the event, and then take on Syria a day later, before facing South Korea on Wednesday.
The finalists of the 13-team event will qualify for the 1st IHF Men’s U-17 Handball World Championship, scheduled to take place in Morocco from October 24 to November 1.
Group A features Bahrain, Kuwait, and Hong Kong, with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and China in Group B.
Jordan, Chinese Taipei, and India complete the lineup in Group C.
The championship was previously scheduled to be held from July 1-11, but was postponed due to the conflict between Iran and Israel.
The Iranian squad left Tehran for the Jordanian capital on Friday, having played to a win and a loss against Qatar in a couple of warmup games last week.
Iran suffered a 28-21 defeat in the first game before coming out on top by a commanding 39-24 scoreline in its second outing in Doha.
The following is the Iranian 18-man squad in Amman:
Mohammad-Hossein Kamali, Mahdi Ahmadi, Reza Khademi, Arshia Javidi, Mohammadreza Hemmati, Ali Ghayour, Amirhossein Nik-Eqbal, Mohsen Hadizadeh, Mehrshad Mansouri, Arian Khaleqi, Mohammad-Pouya Parouhan, Hassan Joudaki, Mohammad Keshavarz, Danial Mirhosseini, Shayan Sousani, Saleh Hesehzadeh, Mohammad-Ebrahim Khanlari, and Farshad Nowruzpour.