Rio de Janeiro: Qatar yesterday secured a valuable point with a late fightback as they earned a thrilling 25-25 draw against spirited Tunisia in their third handball group match at the Rio Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Issam Tej, who was red carded early in Tunisia’s second round match, bounced back this time around, scoring four goals.
Qatar had an opportunity to fight back in the game with a power play in the 17th minute of the second half, but poor defense gave an undermanned Tunisia team space to work the ball into the net.
Another opportunity came in the 23rd minute to level it at 22 all, but a costly turnover gave Tunisia the fast break to open the lead to two instead.
Tunisia’s chances of an upset seemed to fade away in the final moments of play, as they missed chances to put away the match.
Two goals in the final minute were enough for Qatar, with Kamal Aldin Mallash levelling the game in the final 12 seconds of play from a shot in the bottom right.
Rafael Capote scored 12 goals for the Qatari side. The team began their Rio 2016 campaign with a big victory over Croatia.
The 2015 world Championship runners-up, were in complete control of the game from start to finish, despite the Croatian goalkeeper’s big display and in the end won 30-23.
However, they fell against defending champions France in the second game. The Al Anabi will face Denmark tomorrow in their next group match.
Meanwhile, Egypt couldn’t overcome a slow start in their loss to Poland, whose Olympic campaign is officially back on track.
Poland stumped Egypt early, holding Egypt to just 43% efficiency on shooting in the first half. Poland also dominated on the fast break, converting on all five chances in the opening 30 minutes of play.
Egypt held their own in the second half. Eslam Eissa scored five of his six goals in the second half to keep Egypt in it, but it wasn’t enough to accommodate the Poland’s strong core of playmakers. Karol Bielecki, Michal Daszek, Mateusz Jachlewski and Przemyslaw Krajewski all scored more than four goals.
In women’s handball event, France finished Wednesday’s group play with a thumping over bottom dwellers Argentina. Argentina never stood a chance against the French arsenal. Turnovers plagued the Argentines, who scored only four goals in the first half.
Manon Houette (seven goals) and Laurisa Landre (six goals) led the scoring for the French side.
South Korea finally looked like semifinalists early in their match against the Netherlands on Wednesday night, but the Dutch looked equally impressive.
Also coming into form was Gwon Han Na, who was largely absent in South Korea’s first two games. She dominated play on the court in the first half, generating 11 shots and scoring on six of them.
As for Netherlands it was the usual suspects: Nycke Groot, Estavana Pollman and Tess Wester were all exceptional. Groot and Pollman both scored three times for the Dutch, while Wester made a heads up play to throw the ball into the empty South Korean net to give the Netherlands the lead at the half.
The Peninsula
