Incheon, South Korea: Japan’s women handballers scored nearly a goal a minute as they buried hapless Maldives 79-0 at the Asian Games on Sunday.
Three players got into double figures as the Japanese ran up a 40-0 scoreline at half-time and kept going to hand out a beating of giant proportions.
Maldives goalkeeper Nahidha Ahmad did not save a single shot as 11 of the 14 Japanese scorers enjoyed a 100 per cent shot conversion ratio.
“Our physical conditions are low overall, we have injuries. Forty per cent of the players are injured,” said their coach Abdullah Saleem.
“We need lots of improvements to the national team. I think we will try our best in tomorrow’s match.”
The epic defeat comes after the women’s footballers from the honeymoon resort destination lost 15-0, 10-0 and 13-0 to India, Thailand and South Korea respectively.
In the pool, their women’s 4x100 metres freestyle team finished their heat in five minutes, 11.81 seconds — more than a minute-and-a-half behind pacesetters China.
Aishath Sajina splashed almost the whole two lengths of her anchor leg alone as the other teams towelled off, before she finally touched, earning a sympathetic roar from the crowd.
