NAGOYA \u2013 Iran withstood a late fightback to beat China 79-70 and win Asian Games men\u2019s basketball bronze on Sept 20, an achievement that left their players \u201cspeechless\u201d after months of war back home.<\/p>\n
China led 31-29 at half-time in Nagoya, but Iran took charge in the third quarter to lead 55-46 going into the fourth and held on to spark wild celebrations and an emotional place on the podium.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be honest with you I\u2019m just speechless,\u201d said 2.02m power forward Arsalan Kazemi, who in 2013 was the first Iranian to be drafted in the NBA by the Washington Wizards, but never made a regular season appearance.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pressure that we had on us is just out of this world,\u201d the 36-year-old added.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot a lot of athletes can say that, with the way that it has been since almost six months ago, what we have been through, what our families have been through.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just congratulate the people of Iran because they deserve much better.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think my teammates and I put our hearts out on the court today just to get this win and make them happy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Teammate Arman Zangeneh said the squad had been through a lot but it was worth it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you get the medal at the Asian Games you don\u2019t need to go to the army any more, so it\u2019s huge for some players,\u201d said the 2.03m forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a very tough two months. We went to the Philippines to play the qualifiers, then immediately we came here.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really difficult. And living in a container, with the food and everything, it was hard, very hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the end, we get to the point that we go home with a medal, and it means a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s fourth men\u2019s basketball bronze at the Asiad comes after two silvers in 2014 and 2018.<\/p>\n
The US and Iran have been at war for seven months in a conflict since US-Israeli strikes in late February. AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NAGOYA \u2013 Iran withstood a late fightback to beat China 79-70 and win Asian Games men\u2019s basketball bronze…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-898889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}