The event started on July 31 in Canada’s Cawelland and will go through August 5 with participation of 24 teams.
In the 1st round, Iran was in Group MF along with Brazil, Great Britain and Switzerland. In their first match on August 1, the Iranian team faced Switzerland and managed to come from behind and change the 1-3 defeat with a 3-3 draw. Then, the team met Brazil on the same day where they earned a significant 11-3 victory for Iran.
In the last match of the 1st round, Iran edged Great Britain 6-5 and made history with advancing the next stages of the competition for the first time.
In the 2nd round, 12 teams compete in two groups, where top two teams of each group will advance to the semifinal, 3rd and 4th teams of each group will compete for 5-8 places and the last two teams will try their chance for 9-12 places.
Iran is in Group MH of the 2nd round along with Australia, France, Spain, Netherlands and New Zealand. Iran’s canoe polo team started their matches of the 2nd round on Thursday, facing Australia, where they lost the match 7-6 with a last-second penalty.
On Friday, the Iranian squad ran into two other thrilling matches. Despite showing great performance, the team lost both games to France and Netherlands with the same nail-biting result of 4-5.
The team will end this round today after facing Spain and New Zealand.
Coached by Ashkan Sayadi, the Iranian squad comprises of Mohammad Reza Jamshidiyan, Shayegan Kheirollahi, Ramin Ghiyasvand, Mohamad Ali Molaei, Mohammad Yazdani, Ali Ghadami and Mohammadsedigh Heshmatian.
MAH/4364892