Iran falls short against defending champion at Asian wheelchair basketball c’ships

Australia managed to gain a 78-55 victory over Iran. This was the repeat of the 2017 edition’s final bout and where Australia had won Iran 80-54.

The 2017 edition’s MVP, Omid Hadiazhar, once again was named as the best scorer with 19 points while O'neill-Thorne could secure 18.

The Iranian team will meet the host on Tuesday before taking on South Korea on Wednesday.

The Iranian team has so far gained one victory over China and conceded two defeats against Japan and Australia standing fifth at the Divisian A table.

Fourteen men’s teams and eight women’s teams are competing in the championships in a bid to qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. The Asia Oceania Zone has four spots available for the men and three spots available for the women at Tokyo 2020, with one spot in each competition already allocated to Japan as host country, as reported by IWBF.

In the men’s competition the six top-ranked teams – Australia, Iran, Japan, Korea, China, and Thailand – play in Division A, which will be a single round robin to determine 1-6 in the ranking. The other eight teams – Afghanistan, Chinese Taipei, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia – are drawn into two pools of four in Division B and also play in a single round robin to determine placing, followed by crossovers, semi-finals and then a final to determine which are the top two teams in Division B.

Once Division B has concluded, the top two teams will become the 7th and 8th ranked teams in Division A to make up the quarter-final pairings. Teams 9 to 14 will play ranking games to decide lower placings.

MAH