The Beach Handball World Championships in Kazan, Russia proofed once more what an exciting and relatively young sport beach handball is. With two rookie teams placing in the top 5 of the tournament, spectators at the sideline and behind the TV and live streams saw many upset wins, shootouts and drama.
The USA men’s beach handball national team, noting their second appearance on the world stage after their 11th place finish in Budapest 2016, set it’s goals high for their return. The USA women’s beach handball national team, who qualified through a wild card for the tournament, set their goals on player development and gaining their first experiences in inter continental games.
For the first time the tournament was played with 16 teams participating, allowing for many debutantes to proof themselves against experienced teams like Brazil and Spain. The 16 teams were split in 4 groups a 4 teams for the group phase. The first 3 in a group would play the first 3 teams of a crossover group resulting in 2 main groups a 6 teams (previous group phase results count towards main group placement). The 4th placed teams from the group phase played a consolidation round against each other. 5th and 6th placed teams from the main group played then in a 3 stage knock out round to determine placement 9-16. The top 4 of the two main groups played in a 3 stage knock out round to determine placement 1-8. This playing system allowed for a total of 9 games for each team regardless of the final placement. (Complicated, but good job IHF!)
Opponents in the group stage:
Men: Brazil, Russia, Sweden
Women: Brazil, Russia, Thailand
Both USA teams were not able to win a single game in the group stage. The men team lost two of their games in nail biting shoot-outs, while the women had to start into the tournament with their must-win game against Thailand, which they unfortunately lost 0-2.
While the men were able to pick up their game and win the consolidation round dominating with 2-0, the women team was able to reduce the goal difference from set to set, but lacked the experience and calmness to get to their first set win in the tournament.
This first set win was ever so close in the first k.o. match of the placement round, but slipped the women’s team through the hands in the last seconds of the game against Vietnam. The men’s team who also faced Vietnam were able to win the game until their lucky streak ended against a strong Qatar team in the next match. The next opponent for the women was first game opponent Thailand were the women were able to get their first and only win of the tournament. (One can only wonder how the tournament could have developed if the women won their first match the same way…)
Final placement games: The men lost to Argentina, 2-1, in the 11th-place game, while the women lost to Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), 2-0, in the 13th-place game, resulting in a 12th place and 14th place finish respectively.
Congratulations to the men’s team of Brazil, who proofed their excellence once again after struggling in the group phase and the women team from Greece, who played an incredible match against an impressive Norwegian team.
The next international competition for the USA teams is already around the corner as the US is host of the ANOC World Beach Games hosted in San Diego, California!