Qatari handball team defeated its Chinese counterpart in first match of Asian men’s handball qualifiers for the 33rd Summer Olympic Games

In the opening match of the Asian men's handball qualifiers for the 33rd Summer Olympic Games (Paris 2024), held at the Duhail Sports Hall from October 18, 2023 to October 28, 2023, the Qatari handball team defeated the Chinese handball team with a score of 34/25.

The Qatari team performed admirably, managing to close the first half with a four-goal lead (17/13). In the second half, they maintained their dominance, pulling further ahead in the score, and ultimately sealing the win with a nine-goal margin—its first in the qualifying round.

The Indian team, which lost its opening game to the Saudi team earlier today with a score of 17/46, will play the Qatari team in the second round of the first group on October 19, 2023. The runner-up earns a position in the playoffs in March of next year, but only the top qualifier advances to the Olympic Games in Paris, 2024.

After qualifying for the Rio Olympics in Brazil in 2016—the first-ever Olympic qualification in Qatari handball history—and taking first place in the qualifiers held in Doha in 2015, the Qatari team is hoping to earn a qualification card for the Olympics once more.

The Asian men's handball qualifications for the 33rd Summer Olympic Games (Paris 2024) will take place in Doha, Qatar, with 11 teams split into two groups. The teams from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, the Emirates, India, and China are in the first group, and the teams from Bahrain, Iran, Kuwait, Japan, and Kazakhstan are in the second.

The top two players in each group advance to the semi-finals, which take place on October 26. In these matches, the top two players from the first group will play the top two from the second group, and the top two players from the second group will play the top two from the first group. The winners of these matches will advance to the ticket final on October 28. qualifying for the Olympics in Paris in 2024.

Notably, Qatar has hosted the Asian men's handball Olympic qualifying tournament three times in a row: in 2015, it hosted the Rio 2016 Olympic qualifiers, and in 2019, it hosted the Tokyo 2020 Olympic qualifiers.