Bright future ahead of young women kabaddi team: official

TEHRAN – Sedigheh Khadem, the vice president of Iran’s Kabaddi Federation, says that Iran participated in the Asian Championships with a young team, but they could have won the title.

The Iranian Kabaddi team finished as the runners-up in the sixth edition of the Asian Championships, which was held at the Pardis Technology Park, located east of Tehran.

In Group B of the competitions, the Iranian national women’s team defeated Iraq (58-13), and Bangladesh (41-18). In the semi-final match, Team Melli beat Nepal with 47-14 but they were defeated by defending champions India 32-25 in the final.

“As you know, we participated in these competitions with young players. Except for one or two players, all the players were playing in an international event for the first time,” Khadem said in an interview with Vatan News.

“Unfortunately, we could not win against the powerful Indian team in the final game, however, winning a silver medal is also valuable. We had short time to prepare our team for the competition, but we are confident that we will win the titles in future competitions.

“Six strong teams participated in these competitions, all of whom are powerful in Kabaddi. We are happy that we managed to play with four teams out of these six teams. Out of these four matches, we won in three matches and lost against India. In fact, all these four matches were like preparatory matches for the World Championships for us,” she said.

“These matches were a good test for the World Championships, which will be hosted by India in June. We are determined to win the title, although it is a difficult task,” Khadem concluded.