By Eniola Olatunji reporting for Patmos Media Line
NIGERIA’s SENIOR Men’s’ Handball team, The Golden Arrows on Wednesday at the BK Arena in Kigali, Rwanda shocked their Algerian counterparts in the opening Group A match at the 27th African Handball Championship 25-23 goals.
Algeria fought spiritedly to stage a comeback when the first half ended 16-13 in favor of Nigeria but the Nigerians were resilient with deft crabbing, focused shots and good defending to beat Algeria that have won the title 7 times before.
In the other group A match just concluded as at press time, Rwanda beat Zambia 30-19 to top group A with half time scores at 17-8 in favor of hosts Rwanda.
Rwanda tops the group with 2 points scoring 30 goals and conceding 19; Nigeria is 2nd with 2 points scoring 25 goals and conceding 23; Algeria is 3rd with no point conceding 25 goals and scoring 23 while Zambia is 4th also with no point conceding 30 goals and scoring 19.
Nigeria has never won the title since 1974 when they joined the party but had a best performance of a 4th place in South Africa 1998 when they lost the Bronze to Egypt 35-26.
Egypt is the defending champions of the tournament and has won the title for a good 9 times after Tunisia that has won the title a record 10 times.
In some other games played Wednesday, Egypt defeated Gabon 36-25; Tunisia slammed Cameroon 41-22 and Morocco outscored Benin 52-28.
Nigeria drawn in group A with Algeria, hosts Rwanda and Zambia will meet Zambia on Thursday (tomorrow) at 4pm while Algeria will play a redemption match against hosts Rwanda at 6pm same day.
Zambia and Algeria will slug it out at noon and Nigeria will face the hosts Rwanda at 6pm both on Saturday 24th January in last group games.
The tournament that started Wednesday 21st January is expected to draw her curtain on 31st January and this tournament will stand as qualifications for Africa’s representatives at the World Men’s Handball Championship in Germany in 2027.
Nigeria was at the last world cup where she placed 2nd in group B where USA topped winning 2 matches and drew 1 with 5 points scoring 118 goals and conceding 82; Nigeria also won 2 matches drew 1, had 5 points like USA scoring 85 goals and conceding 70; Moldova won a match and lost 2, was 3rd in that group with 2 points scoring 81 goals and conceding 88 while Azerbaijan placed 4th losing all her 3 games with no point, scored 63 goals and conceded 107.
#AHBF #NSC #NHF #RHF
