*** ----> Asian Men’s Handball championships today | THE DAILY TRIBUNE | KINGDOM OF BAHRAIN

Asian Men’s Handball championships today

The 17th Asian Men’s Handball Championship gets underway today at Khalifa Sports City in Isa Town with three Group B matches scheduled staring at 2pm with China taking on UAE, followed at 4pm when Saudi Arabia play Iran and after the opening ceremony at 6.30pm, hosts Bahrain face Lebanon at 7.30pm.

Bahrain’s remaining four matches all start at 7pm when the face China on Sunday, UAE on Tuesday, Iran next Thursday and Saudi Arabia on January 23. Bahrain will be hoping to go one better in these championships after they finished the 2014 edition, also hosted by the Kingdom as runners-up after narrowly losing 26-27 to Qatar in the final.

This will be Bahrain’s 14th appearance in the finals and they have also finished runners-up in 2010 to South Korea losing 25-32 when Lebanon hosted the championships and have also had a third place finish back in 1995 in Kuwait City. A total of 11 teams are in the fray with Group A made up of Qatar, South Korea, Oman, Japan and Syria.