Hawwa Eshal Riyaz has departed to Bahrain to participate in the Asian Youth Para Games starting next month.

The 4th Asian Youth Para Games will be going on from December 2-6. In this tournament, 800 athletes below 23 years will be participating this time around.

9 sports events are organized to be taken place in this year’s tournament. They are athletics, badminton, boccia, goalball, taekwondo, powerlifting, swimming, table tennis, and wheelchair basketball.

Eshal will be participating in the badminton event. This is the first time that a Maldivian athlete is participating in an international para-badminton event. This opportunity was created for eshal through the help of Maldives Badminton Association and Maldives Paralympic Association.

Youth Minister Mahloof had also met Eshal before she departed and given her some words of encouragement for the tournament.

Eshal is currently studying at Thaajuddheen School. She had played handball as well in the past. After playing handball for 2 years, she was introduced to badminton in 2019 when she participated in the Shutter Time event hosted by Badminton Association for special needs children.

The Asian Youth Para Games were held last in Dubai in 2017. 800 athletes from 30 countries had participated in the tournament at that time.