Iran’s Sports Achievements Last Week

Tehran, July 3, IRNA – Iran’s sports passed a very busy time at international athletic forra last week featuring many records of success, notably four consecutive victories for the Men's Under 22 Football Team in Preliminary Asian Qualifying contests and getting another berth of London Olympics. ** The Men's Under 22 Football Team in Preliminary Asian under 22 Year Qualifiers Championship defeated Tajikistan 2-0. It had already defeated teams from Qatar, Kuwait, and Maldives. It will face Bahrain on Tuesday. **Reza Qassemi, the 100 meter runner, managed to get an Olympic berth, thus raising the total Olympics berths secured by Iran to to 52. Thus far, only one badminton player and several other athletes in track and field events have had managed to win the Olympic berths. **Ali Mazaheri, Asian box champion, is elected as flag bearer of Iran sports caravan in the London 2012 Olympic Games. He is the gold medalist of the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar, and the 2010 Asian Games, also known as the XVI Asiad. He has also succeeded in winning a gold and two bronze medals of Asian Championships. **Iran’s National Karate Team, winning four gold, six silver and seven bronze medals both in men’s and women’s categories, took the first place at World Karate Premier League series in Indonesia. Japan with four gold, two silver and four bronze medals ranked second, followed by France with three gold and two bronze medals. South Korea and Indonesia ranked fourth and fifth respectively. **Morteza Dobran, Iran’s handy football champion, defeated all his rivals from the US, Germany, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, the UAE, South Korea, and Japan, to get the championship title in the Malaysia International Handy Football Championships. He had already stood top in international games in Turkey two weeks ago. **Noshad Alamian, the national table tennis player, managed to win the first title of Morocco International Adults Championships. **Iran’s young chess players won four gold, two silver and one bronze medals at the Asian Championships in Sri Lanka. **On the second and third days of the International Swimming Championships for the Disabled in Germany, Iranian swimmers won two gold, six silver and two bronze medals. The Iranian disabled swimmers had already won three gold, two silver and three bronze medals. **The third round of the 11th International Cycling Competitions in China finished with the success of Hossein Alizadeh, the Iranian cyclist of Tabriz Petrochemical Company’s team . **Iran’s Junior Handball Team defeated Macao team 69-15 and ranked first after defeating Iraq in the Asian Youth Handball Championships. **Iran’s junior under-18 basketball team was defeated by Hungarian under-22 national basketball team 72 to 49. The Iranian team will have two more matches against under-20 team of Hungary and the under-23 academic team. **Maryam Toosi, Iranian sprinter, pocketed a bronze medal in the 400 meter event of Asian Stars Track and Field Competitions in Kazakhstan. She finished third after running a distance of 400 meters at 53:65 seconds. Two athletes from Kazakhstan stood in the first and second places of the category. **Sajjad Hashemi Ahangari, one of the eight Olympic track and field runners from Iran, won the gold medal of Asian Stars Track and Field Competitions in Kazakhstan in the 400 meter category. **Kaleh Volleyball Team from Iran’s northern Mazandaran Province in its first match in the Asian Clubs’ Competitions in Chinese city of Shanghai defeated the Uzbekistan team 3-0. Kaleh will face Qatar’s al-Arabi Team on Monday, the second day of the competitions./end