Day 1 of the Women’s World Championships in China is in the books. The minor surprise of the day is Brazil knocking off France 22-20 in the so called “Group of Death”. The other “outsiders” all lost their matches, although Congo hung tough with Sweden, drawing with them 9-9 at halftime, before Sweden got their act together in the 2nd half.

Perhaps, Sweden’s poor performance can be tied to the lack of heat at the arena and the Chinese authorities blocking of access to Facebook. Both of these problems were noted in Swedish player, Isabelle Gulden’s blog for Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. Apparently, Chinese authorities did not heat during training sessions as a cost saving measure.

Sweden faces Brazil tomorrow in a key match up for both teams.

Isabelle Gulden Blog posts: http://blogg.aftonbladet.se/bellasvmblogg/2009/12/skype-och-facebook
http://blogg.aftonbladet.se/bellasvmblogg/2009/12/lucia-uttagning

Editor's note: The IHF website may not be the best source of information on a day to day basis, but they do a pretty good job of reporting on their World Championship events. For results, news stories and live ticker of matches: http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=327