The IHF recently posted an interview with IHF Vice President, Miguel Roca discussing the recent Women’s Youth Championships in the Dominican Republic. In the interview, Mr. Roca acknowledges the logistical snafus that plagued the tournament, highlighted the lack of overall quality play (compared to the men’s youth) and lamented the poor results of non-European teams.

These, of course, are not startling revelations. European news sources have chronicled the logistical shortcomings and the poor performance of non-European teams is clearly discernible from the results. What is unusual and practically never seen, however, is an IHF acknowledgement of anything that can be construed as negative performance by the IHF. It’s too early to assess whether this marks the first step towards more candor on the IHF website or whether this is an anomaly, but I’ll give credit where credit’s due. Here’s hoping for a follow up interview that outlines what steps the IHF will take to correct these shortcomings.

IHF (12 Aug 10): Interview with Miguel Roca: “We still have a lot of work ahead of us”: http://www.ihf.info//MediaCenter/News/NewsDetails/tabid/130/Default.aspx?ID=419