RIO DE JANEIRO: Qatar suffered a defeat at the hands of world champions France in the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, losing 35-20 in their second match of the competition yesterday.
Given it was Qatar and France who met in the final of the 22nd IHF Men’s Handball World Championship in January last year, the opening match of round two was expected to be a close one.
The first half delivered on those expectations, but in the second period France stormed home to the final whistle keeping Qatar to only seven goals in those 30 minutes.
The opening of the game was level as Thierry Omeyer made a save in the eighth converted to a goal by Nikola Karabatic (3:3), after which Qatar’s Hassan Mabrouk was sent off for two minutes.
During his time on the bench France moved ahead to hold a 6:4 advantage after 10 minutes, before Qatar came back to level the score at 6:6 by the 13th.
France maintained a steady one to two-goal advantage as Michael Guigou scored a penalty against Danijel Saric to earn France a two-goal lead at 9:7 just after the 15-minute mark, before Marko Bagaric responded and the difference returned to one (8:9).
That was the closest Qatar would come to victory however, and when France reached an 11:8 advantage in the 19th coach Valero Rivera called his first time-out of the match.
The Asian champions could not decrease the score-line and as the last 10 minutes of the half began Nikola Karabatic added his second goal to take the score to 12:9.
With Qatar’s Zarko Markovic out on a suspension France kept their three-goal lead thanks to Luc Abalo as the buzzer for the half-time break sounded, and when the match resumed France really began to open up the advantage.
With 15 minutes left on the clock the reigning champions had created a 25:16 lead, and the two points were clearly safe in the hands of Les Experts.
The Peninsula
