Doha, The Asian Men's Olympic Qualification Tournament for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will begin on Wednesday in Doha.
Eleven Asian teams will compete for a place in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with the competition taking place in Al Duhail Handball Sports Hall The competition will take place between 18 and 28 Oct., with two round-robin groups in the preliminary round, with the top two sides in each group progressing to the semi-finals, extending their hopes for the coveted Paris 2024 Olympic Games ticket.
Group A includes the teams of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, the Emirates, India and China. Group B includes the teams of Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Japan, and Kazakhstan.
Qatar begins its qualifying campaign on Wednesday facing China in the fifth match of the opening day, which also witnesses four other confrontations bringing together the UAE with South Korea, Bahrain with Kazakhstan, India with Saudi Arabia, and Iran with Japan.
Qatar's second match will be against India on Oct. 19. In their third match, Qatar will take on the UAE on Oct. 21, followed by South Korea on Oct. 22. Qatar will conclude the group stage matches against Saudi Arabia on Oct. 24.
Only the first-place finisher qualifies for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, while the runner-up qualifies for a playoff spot next March.
Qatar are aiming to obtain a qualification card for the Olympic Games for the second time, after having qualified for the 2016 Rio Olympics in Brazil, for the first time in the history of Qatari handball after obtaining first place in the qualifiers that were also held in Doha in 2015.
The first and second of each group qualify for the semi-finals, which will be held on the 26th of Oct. in which the first of Group A will meet the second of Group B, and the first of Group B will meet the second of Group A, with the two winners qualifying for the final match on the 28th of the same month for the ticket qualifying for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
This is the third time in a row that Qatar has hosted the Asian men's handball qualifiers for the Olympic Games. In 2015, Qatar hosted the Rio 2016 Olympic qualifiers. In 2019, Qatar hosted the Tokyo 2020 Olympic qualifiers. .
Source: Qatar News Agency