Egypt coach Mosaad Elaiuty is looking for more than just a bronze medal finish at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

The African powerhouse team prevailed against hosts Brazil in a five-set encounter for a bronze medal finish at the Rio 2016 Paralympics. This time in the Japanese capital, the Egyptian mentor and his team are driven to upgrade their podium placement.

“We had a bronze medal in Rio, we are hoping and planning to get more than the bronze medal here. I think my team is ready to do a big surprise.” – Mosaad Elaiuty

Egypt are grouped with Bosnia and Herzegovina, RPC and Japan in Pool A. Elaiuty sees tough competition in their group in the preliminary round.

“The group makes a difference. In Rio, we had Brazil, Germany and the United States. Here, we have Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia and Japan. I think our group is a much stronger group than the other group with Iran, Brazil, Germany and China,” he said.

“Because Japan are hosts, they are really fighting for one of the top two places to qualify for the semifinals.”

With the Parlaympic Games being postponed for due to the pandemic, Egypt only started their preparations a couple of months ago and had two training camps before the much-anticipated quadrennial.

“We only started preparing in the past six months for the Paralympic Games. We’ve had two training camps, one in Germany and one in Kazakhstan. We had some trial matches, and this helped show me some of our mistakes and what I need to prepare and change to come here.”

Egypt’s first match will be against Rio 2016 silver medallists Bosnia and Herzegovina on August 27 at 20.30 local time. They will face the home team on August 29 at 18.30, then meet RPC on August 31 at 10.00.