Asian handball championship will start on Saturday

Lebanon is going to host the 14th Asian Men'Handball Championship in Beirut, from 6 to 19 February 2010, where the top three teams will qualify to the 2011 world championship in Sweden.

Following the suspension of the Kuwait Olympic committee and then the Kuwait handball federation after the interference of Kuwait government in sport, groups are as follows:

A: Saudi Arabia, China, Syria;
B: Japan, Bahrain, Iraq;
C: Rep. of Korea, Qatar, United Arab Emirates;
D: Iran, Lebanon, Jordan.

With the absence of Kuwait who was the favorite to win the tournament, the groups look fairly balanced with preference to Korea and Iran, then "black horse" Saudi Arabia.

In addition to that, Japan Lebanon, who did huge progress in last few years, and Qatar are expected to do well, while China remain a good competitor although they never had a good result.