Rwanda opens against Iran in London Paralympics

London 2012 Paralympics Games Aug 30 Iran vs Rwanda Aug 31 Brazil vs Rwanda

Sunday, June 03, 2012

London 2012 Paralympics GamesAug 30Iran vs RwandaAug 31Brazil vs RwandaSep 2Rwanda vs ChinaSep 3Bosnia vs RwandaDEBUTANTS Rwanda has been handed a tricky group in the London 2012 Paralympics Games after being drawn against sitting volleyball champions Iran.The team will take on the 2008 winners on August 30 before entertaining Brazil, China and 2008 silver medal winners Bosnia and Herzegovina in the London Paralympics Games slated for August 30-September 8.Reacting to the draws, National Paralympics Committee president Dominique Bizimana, who is also the captain of the national sitting volleyball team told Sunday Sport that Rwanda won’t go to London fearing anyone."We are drawn against the two finalists in the last Paralympics Games, which our task even harder, but we will only respect them and not fear them. Our priority is to perform well in the first match, which will be the most difficult,” said Bizimana.The team is fresh from a two week training camp in the Netherlands and will continue non residential training at Amahoro stadium for the next two weeks before leaving for London for more training.Group A has hosts Britain, Morocco, Russia, Germany and Egypt.The Men’s tournament will begin with two pools of five teams playing in a round-robin format within each pool; all teams will play each other once in their respective pools.The top four teams in each pool will qualify for the quarter-final phase, with the bottom teams from each pool playing each other for ninth and 10th places.The winners of the four quarterfinals will progress to the semi finals, while the losers will play classification matches to determine the rankings from 5-8.The winners of the semi finals will then play in the Gold Medal match, while the losing teams from the semi-finals play in the Bronze Medal match.