Queensotwn’s Rohil Prasad will represent New Zealand at the IHF Men’s Youth (under-19) World Championship in Croatia, just three months after first picking up a handball.
The former Wakatipu High student’s far more familiar with a foot, as a talented goalkeeper for the school’s 1st XI and various rep teams through the grades.
The first-year Otago uni student, who still plays soccer for a varsity team in the Dunedin senior men’s league, was introduced to handball in May when car-pooling from Dunedin to Queenstown with a bunch of handballer uni mates.
They were playing in a social handball event in Queenstown and needed a back-up goalkeeper, Rohil recalls.
The 18-year-old obliged, fell in love with the fast and furious game, and hasn’t looked back.
His ride-sharers happened to be in the New Zealand U19 team and, before long, Rohil joined them in the squad that will jet off on Sunday to contest the world champs in August.
He has just three games of handball under his belt, including two played against the full NZ senior team at a training camp in Christchurch last month.
‘‘There I got to meet the [U19] team, including the other goalkeeper who taught me a few tricks — it’s been a bit like learning on the job.”
Although having experience as a football goalie is ‘‘handy’’, the requirements differ greatly between hand and football, he says.
At 3m wide by 2m high, handball goals are less than half the width of soccer goals and 44cm shorter.
The reduced area to keep is countered by the fact handball’s played on a pitch less than half as long and under a third as wide as a soccer field, which makes for a quick-fire game with keepers peppered with more shots on goal than their football counterparts.
“As a keeper in handball you don’t dive as much and use your legs a lot more because you need to be quicker to react,” Rohil explains.
“They’re shooting the ball from 80 to 100kmh … [and] go for the corners so you use your legs to block the low shots … and you have to have keep your hands above your shoulders for the high shots.”
The team fly to Hungary for a week-long training camp before the world champs start on August 2.
He’s “stoked and grateful” for the opportunity to go to Europe for the first time and represent his country.
Keen Mountain Scene readers may recognise Rohil as one of a pair of school kids who spent nearly two days in a Skyline gondola cabin to raise $12,000 for the World Vision 40-Hour Famine in 2021.
Those fundraising skills are again needed as Rohil must come up with $14,500 to pay for the trip.
He’s about halfway there thanks to the Queenstown Lions Club, which has donated $2000, for which he is “extremely grateful”, and others who have given to the fundraising page he has set up: nzyouthhandball.raisely.com/rohil-prasad.
If there was a local business keen to sponsor him, he says he’d be all ears.
