Plenty to be proud of!

Bahrain has plenty to be proud of after securing a Top 10 finish at the 19th Asian Men’s U20 Volleyball Championship.

The host country took ninth place overall after taking down Sri Lanka in straight sets 3-0 (25-21, 25-19, 25-17) with Hasan Abbas finishing as Bahrain’s top scorer with 14 points.

After winning their first three games, Bahrain’s dreams of reaching the quarterfinals were shattered last Wednesday night following a heartbreakingly narrow 3-2 defeat against Australia despite being two up at one stage.

National assistant coach Protic Nebojsa, however, believes the host’s spirited showing that delighted the home fans, bodes well for the future. “We gave it our best shot,” he said. “We made mistakes that we regret, but that’s sport.

“Our players are young, full of hope, full of dreams, and they wanted to do well in this tournament so badly. After the game, most of them were crying and it was very emotional.”

“That is life and losing is part of the game,” he added. “But it’s not the losing that is bad, what’s bad is if you don’t learn a lesson and grow from the experience.”

The players did as instructed by ‘picking themselves up, dusting themselves down and moving on’ with two convincing performances in the final classification stages.

In the penultimate evening of the championship they battled back from a set down to defeat Turkmenistan 3-1 (23-25, 25-15, 25-13, 25-8) before smashing Sri Lanka.

Unbeatable Iran were crowned champions after a dominant 3-0 (25-22, 25-14, 25-18) victory over Korea in an entertaining final at Isa Sports City in Riffa securing a sixth title in the history of the competition.

Following the final, the official closing ceremony and awards presentation was held. Handing over the trophies and medals were Supreme Council for Youth and Sports assistant general secretary and Bahrain Olympic Committee general secretary, Abdulrahman Askar, along with Bahrain Volleyball Association president, Shaikh Ali bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, and other officials.