{"id":898973,"date":"2026-09-20T14:14:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T14:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/898973\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T14:14:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T14:14:12","slug":"iran-win-asian-games-basketball-bronze-amid-emotional-scenes-basketball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/898973\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran win Asian Games basketball bronze amid emotional scenes | Basketball"},"content":{"rendered":"

Players celebrate podium finish that brings exemption from conscription, saying the pressure was \u2018out of this world\u2019.<\/p>\n

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Published On 20 Sep 202620 Sep 2026<\/p>\n

Iran withstood a late fightback to beat China 79-70 and win the Asian Games men\u2019s basketball bronze, 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 prompt wild celebrations and secure a place on the podium on Sunday.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTo be honest with you, I\u2019m just speechless,\u201d said 6ft 8in (203cm) power forward Arsalan Kazemi, who, in 2013, was the first Iranian to be drafted into 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 he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot a lot of athletes can say that, with the way that it has been for almost six months, what we have been through, what our families have been through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI just congratulate the people of Iran because they deserve much better.\u201d<\/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 Kazemi said.<\/p>\n

\"AsianIran\u2019s Matin Aghajanpour and Mahdi Jafari celebrate [Edgar Su\/Reuters]<\/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 6ft 6in (198cm) forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a very tough two months. We went to the Philippines to play the qualifiers, then immediately we came here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was really difficult. And living in a container, with the food and everything, it was hard, very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, we got to the point where we go home with a medal, and it means a lot,\u201d Zangeneh added.<\/p>\n

\"AsianMembers of Iran\u2019s coaching staff celebrate on court after the win [Anushree Fadnavis\/Reuters]<\/p>\n

Male athletes from the country\u2019s national teams who win medals at the Asian Games are granted exemption from mandatory military conscription in a move announced by Iran\u2019s former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in 2018.<\/p>\n

Previously, only medallists at the Olympic or world games were exempt from the draft, according to Iran\u2019s semi-official Tasnim news agency.<\/p>\n

Iranian males reaching the age of 18 are required to serve two years on active duty and are then transferred to the reserve force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Players celebrate podium finish that brings exemption from conscription, saying the pressure was \u2018out of this world\u2019. Published…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,512,5575,941,588,85],"class_list":["post-898973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-china","tag-iran","tag-japan","tag-sport","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898973","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=898973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}