Half-time:
Going places
By
Inas Mazhar
The qualification of Egypt's handball team to the Olympic Games in Athens next year is a welcome change. The squad had given the country's brightest moments but had also recently stumbled badly.
By beating Tunisia, the handball team will go to an Olympics for the fourth time in its history and might well be the only team representing Egypt at the Games, depending on what the football players do next month. The basketball and volleyball teams are definitely out.
As one of the top seven teams in the world during the past decade, the Egyptians used to automatically qualify for the Olympics. But after dropping to 15th place in the World Championships in Portugal earlier this year, Egypt was forced to enter continental qualifications.
To go to Athens, the team faced two African giants in qualifications in Angola: African champions Tunisia and runners-up Algeria. The three clashed in a four-day round-robin tournament that was supposed to comprise four teams. But Morocco, fourth in Africa, withdrew, reportedly because of the big difference it saw between it and the other three powerhouses of the game. Cameroon, ranked fifth on the continent, was asked to fill in for Morocco but it, too, declined, possibly for the same reasons Rabat gave.
The African Handball Confederation was, therefore, obliged to conduct the qualifications with only three teams, only one of which would go to the Olympics.
Egypt barely won its opener against Algeria 28-27, then triumphed over Tunisia 31-29 in a thrilling final qualifier which was unfortunately blighted by post-match altercations. So incensed did one Tunisian player become at the theatrics of Egypt's Hussein Zaki in the final seconds of the game -- Zaki mockingly dribbled the ball to deliberately waste time -- that he punched him from behind, which led to the clearing of both benches. After several minutes of jostling, the players were separated by Angolan police.
The coaches as well went at it. Head coach of the Tunisian team, Yugoslav Zoran Zakovitch, the former coach of the Egyptian team, showed extreme unsportsmanlike conduct when at the end, instead of shaking hands with Tunisia's German coach Jean Lomeil, he threw a water bottle at him. Lomeil ducked so the bottle flew instead in the face of an unsuspecting bystander. The unlucky victim, who suffered a cut lip, was none other than Al-Ahram's Ehab El-Sharkawy, representing the Pyramids Advertising Agency, sponsor of the tournament. El-Sharkawy is also known as my husband.
Ehab is recuperating and so, too, is the team which has done well under Lomeil who took over for one year; his contract expires at the end of the Olympic Games. The African qualifications were Lomeil's first test with the Egyptians and he has passed. He has also promised to help the team recapture the form that once took it close to the pinnacle of the sport.
