Brazilian twist as beach handball continues to develop in Iran

Continuing his commitment to spreading his vast wealth of beach handball knowledge across the world, Brazilian men’s national team coach Antonio Peixe – who most-recently won the IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship title in Kazan in July 2018 – was in Iran throughout November and early December.

Peixe was invited to Iran to provide coaching courses, clinics and training to the Iranian senior teams as well as helping the younger players prepare for the next edition of the Youth Olympic Games – to be held in Senegal in 2022.

He also held numerous meetings and lectures with a variety of those involved, or linked to the sport, in the Asian nation, all with the aim of improving the beach handball in Iran.

Last October, Peixe was present in Buenos Aires, Argentina, watching the Argentina women win gold and men win bronze at the Youth Olympic Games having worked with the federation ahead of the debut of the sport at Olympic level, and in August, he was at the ‘SoCal Beach Handball Championship’ in California for the second-year running, working and assisting with the event which forms part of the US Beach Handball Tour 2018.

After arriving in Iran on 8 November, Peixe visited the cities of Isfahan, Bandar Abbas, Bushehr and Tehran before leaving the country on 4 December.

“They all have the talent and desire,” said Peixe to IHF.info about the state of beach handball in Iran, “But, like in many countries, there are some people fear that beach handball may ‘steal space’ from indoor handball; they do not see beach handball as another product, more as a problem.

“Iran was an excellent country to visit with many beautiful sights and a very hospitable population,” he continued. “There are possibilities for projects with Iran [in the future], the Asian Games are coming, which will provide a qualification place for the World Beach Games in San Diego and also three places for the 2020 IHF World Championship in Italy, but everything depends on them wanting to move forward.

“All my work has seen different approaches,” said Peixe when reflecting on his 2018. “They are all difficult to compare, but with our situation beforehand in Brazil, the gold medal at Kazan 2018  was the biggest highlight - being a five-time world champion in those conditions was epic.”

Photos: Antonio Peixe