PARIS/ DOHA — Iraq qualified for the men’s soccer tournament at the Paris Olympic Games with a 2-1 win over Indonesia in the third-place playoff at the Under-23 Asian Cup.
Ali Jasim’s extra-time winner means Iraq take Asia’s third automatic place at the Olympics. Japan and Uzbekistan have both already qualified for the Paris Games.
Indonesia took the lead after 19 minutes at Abdullah bin Khalifa Stadium in the meeting of the two defeated semifinalists when Ivar Jenner scored from outside the area.
Eight minutes later, Zaid Tahseen headed home at the near post to make it 1-1. The game went to extra time and Iraq took the lead in the 96th.
The Indonesian defense misjudged the bounce of a long pass allowing Jasim to run free into the right side of the area.
He sent a powerful shot across the diving goalkeeper to put Iraq on the brink of their sixth Olympic appearance.
Indonesia, still searching for a first Olympic appearance since 1956, almost took the game to a penalty shootout in the final action but Justin Hubner’s header was cleared off the line.
There is still one more opportunity for Indonesia. They will face Guinea in a May 9 playoff for a place in Paris.
Elsewhere, Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo inaugurated a colossal storage basin that will help reduce the risks of pollution in the Seine as the Olympics approach and make the river suitable for bathing.
The primary goal is to have the Seine batheable by 2025, with the Paris Games boosting that aim, even though some sporting events were cancelled last summer as health standards were not met after rare heavy rains and a sewer problem.
The city has been building a storage basin capable of holding 46,000 cubic metres of waste water to significantly reduce the risks of pollution in the Seine.
It will now start to operate before the end of the month.
“It’s a childhood dream coming true. Remember when you were 10 years old, sitting by a lake and wishing to take a dive,” Hidalgo said according to Reuters.
“In Paris, our dream was to bathe in the river like the Parisians used to do 100 years ago. The Olympics gave this project a huge boost.”
The water will be tested every day during the Olympics to make sure it will be safe for the triathlons and open water swimming in the Seine. The Games start on July 26.
Once the rain is collected in the Austerlitz basin – a monster, 30-metre deep structure the size of a dozen Olympic swimming pools – it will be moved through a tunnel beneath the train station to a treatment plant.
When the water meets the required health criteria it will then be poured into the Seine.
Former Paris mayor Jacques Chirac in 1988 promised he would swim in the Seine “in the presence of witnesses”. Current mayor Hidalgo is about to make that dream come true, although any mishap during the Olympics would be seen as a setback.
“It’s a fantastic legacy for the Parisians,” said Tony Estanguet, head of the Paris 2024 organising committee.
“We’ll be the first ones to benefit from the basin (with the Olympics), but we did it for the environment and for the quality of the water to be dramatically improved.”
