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IWBF Asia Oceania hosted the qualifying tournament for the zone for the Rio 2016 in Chiba, Japan between the 10th - 17th October 2015. The competition on the women’s side was extremely fierce as Australia, China and Japan fought for only one spot in Rio.
Whilst on the men’s side 12 teams played for the three spots, the teams who competed were Australia, Iran, Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia, Thailand, Chinese Taipei, UAE, Iraq, Philippines, Afghanistan.
WOMEN’s PLAY
In preliminary play the women played a double round robin tournament for the right to go to Rio. At the end of the preliminary round China lead, undefeated at 4-0, Australia lost to China and defeated Japan to finish 2-2 and Japan was unable to grab a win and ended with a record of 0-4.
In the game for the right to go to Rio, China met Australia. The first quarter saw the teams play even, ending the first quarter tied at 14 for each. The second quarter saw China pull away to take the lead of 31 – 24 at the half.
The second half saw China remain strong as they continued to pull away to lead 45 -34 at the end of the 3 quarter. Australia was not able to catch up as Chine maintained their lead and finished 59 – 43 at the end of the game.
Top scorers for China with 16 points was Yun Long with 16, Haizhen Cheng with 13 and Suiling Lin coming through with 12. For Australia Cobi Crispin had a game high 14 points joined by Leanna Del Toso, Clair Nott and Kylie Gauci with 6 each.
CHINA women win Gold and the one spot to Rio for the 2016 Paralympic Games.
MEN’s PLAY
The 12 teams were divided into 2 groups of 6. The groups played a round robin preliminary competition with the top four in each group going on to the quarterfinals and the bottom two teams playing for 9-12 placements.
At the end of the preliminaries the teams who advanced were
From Group A: Australia, Iran, Malaysia, Chinese Taipei
From Group B: Korea, Japan, China, Thailand
For position 9-12:
Philippines finished 11 and Afghanistan was 12 after 72-58 win by Philippines.
Iraq defeated the UAE 57 – 49. Iraq was 9th and the UAE 10th
For positions 5-8:
Thailand finished 7 based on a 51-42 win over Chinese Taipei who finishes 8.
China finished 5 winning 69 – 33 over Malaysia who finishes 6.
Semi Finals
In the first men’s semi-final play it was Australia over Japan 70 – 41. Top scorer for Australia was Tristan Knowles with 25 points and for Japan was Hiroaki KOZAI with 16.
In the other semi-final game Iran defeated Korea 83 – 67. Top scorer for Iran was Ebrahimi Morteza with 33 and for Korea Seunghyun/Cho 17 to set up a final day.
Australia played Iran for Gold and Korea played Japan for the Bronze. With only three spots to Rio for men the Bronze medal game was the one to win.
In men’s play on the final day
Bronze Medal Game – Japan V. Korea for final spot to Rio
Japan men came out slow falling behind Korea 24 – 15 at the end of the first quarter. At the halfway point of the second period Japan had closed the gap to 6 and they continued to play well throughout the rest of the first half. By the end of the first half Japan had taken the lead to go into half time up by 4-points 38-32.
In the second half Japan increased the lead to 48 – 37 but with five minutes to go in the 3 period Korea fought back to get it the Japan lead to under 10. Japan roared out in the 4th quarter taking the lead to 67 – 53 mid-way through the period and ended the game with an 80 – 56 win. With the win Japan qualified as the third team from Asia Oceania to head to RIO.
Top scorers:
- Japan - Reo Fujimoto - 28pts, Hiroaki Kozai - 22pts.
- Korea - Donghyeon Gim - 20pt, Seunghyun Cho - 15 pts.
Gold Medal Game – Australia v Iran
In the gold medal game Australia lead from the start with a first quarter score of 19 – 12. Australia remained strong and at half was up 36 – 29 over Iran.
Iran started the second half well came back to within 4 to end the 3rd quarter, trailing Australia 49 – 45. Australia proved to be too strong for Iran in the final quarter, pulling away in the start of the fourth and continuing their run to the end of the game. Australia pulled away to win by 18 points, with a final score of Australia 78 – Iran 60.
Top scorers for Australia were Tristan Knowles with 21, Brent Stibners with 15 and Shawn Russel with 14.
Scoring for Iran were Ebrahimi Morteza with 24 and Gholamazad Vahid with 12.
Final standings:
Women: China - Gold, Australia - Silver, Japan - Bronze.
Men: Australia - Gold, Iran - Silver, Japan - Bronze, Korea (4th), China (5th), Malaysia (6th), Thailand (7th), Chinese Taipei (8th), UAE (9th), Iraq (10th), Philippines (11th), Afghanistan (12th)
Asia Oceania will be represented in RIO by China for the women and Australia, Iran and Japan for the men.
