The U.S. Men’s and Women’s National Teams are not competing at the 2024 Olympics because they failed to qualify.
The U.S. (and all nations, for that matter) had two paths for Olympic Qualification: Either through the continental championship (The PANAM Games) or the World Championships. The simplest path, and one that the U.S. principally qualified through before, was winning the Handball Tournament at the PANAM Games. The other, more challenging path, would have been to place 1st or 2nd at an Olympic Qualification Tournament.
- How do nations qualify for the Olympics: Link
USA Men: The USA Men would have had to have won the handball competition at the 2023 PANAM Games. They finished in 4th place and lost to the eventual champion, Argentina, 28-14 in Pool Play and to runner-up, Brazil, 40-27. The U.S. Men could have also qualified for an Olympic Qualification Tourney if they had finished 2nd at the PANAM Games or 10th or higher at the 2023 World Championships. (The U.S. placed 20th) And, then at the Olympic Qualification Tourney they would have had to have finished 2nd out of the 4 team tournament they were assigned to.
USA Women: The USA Women have had to have won the handball competition at the 2019 PANAM Games. They failed to qualify for the PANAM Games, losing first to Canada in a 2 game series and then in a 2nd chance qualification tournament vs Uruguay and the Dominican Republic. Similar to the U.S. Men, the U.S. Women could have qualified via the 2023 World Championships if they had qualified for that event.
- Handball FAQ Home Page: Link
- Direct link to this question: Link
Men
1972 1-0-4 (14th out of 16 teams)
1976 0-0-5 (10th out of 11 teams)
1984 1-1-4 (9th out of 12 teams)
1988 0-0-6 (12th out of 12 teams)
1996 2-0-4 (9th out of 12 teams)
Overall: 4-1-23
Women
1984 2-0-3 (5th out of 6 teams)
1988 1-0-4 (7th out of 8 teams)
1992 1-0-3 (6th out of 8 teams)
1996 0-0-4 (8th out of 8 teams)
Overall: 4-0-14
Source: http://www.ihf.info/upload/matchresuts/SReihe_Olympic_Games.pdf
- Handball FAQ Home Page: Link
- Direct link to this question: Link
Yes. There are currently a handful of youth programs and competitions in the U.S. See below for more information.
- San Francisco Bay Area:
- SF Cal Heat: The SF Cal Heat Team Handball club has a youth team and hosts Middle School and High School Leagues in the Bay Area. More info: Link
- Montgomery County, Maryland
- Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland play team handball as a corollary sport to provide more opportunities for students not involved in traditional varsity sports. More information: Link
- Handball FAQ Home Page: Link
- Direct link to this question: Link
There are no current rankings for USA clubs, but we may re-start collegiate club rankings next season
Some Wikipedia pages have historical results from the annual USA Team Handball National Championships. The USA Championships are typically played over a 3 day weekend tournament.
- USA National Championships Home Page: Link
- Men’s Elite Club Championship: Link
- Men’s Open Club Championship: Link
- Women’s Open Club Championship: Link
- Men’s Collegiate Club Championship: Link
- Women’s Collegiate Club Championship: Link
- Handball FAQ Home Page: Link
- Direct link to this question: Link
A huge, negative impact. Development of any new sport can be challenging, but the additional semantic challenge Team Handball has due to simply having the same name as an unrelated sport has added another layer of difficulty. While a semantic issue might not seem significant at first, the fact that virtually everyone in the US who is introduced to the sport, must first be explained what the sport is and that it is not the Handball they think it is a difficult hurdle to cross. In the USA, the sport is often described as “soccer with your hands” or “water polo without water” or “lacrosse without sticks” to help newcomers visualize the sport. Still even with these descriptions many still can not conceptualize the sport because the vision of a little ball being slapped off a wall is too engrained into their brain.
- Handball FAQ Home Page: Link
- Direct link to this question: Link
For more information check out the USA Team Handball website www.usateamhandball.org
- Handball FAQ Home Page: Link
- Direct link to this question: Link
A 3 day weekend open club tournament organized by the National Federation is held in the spring of each year, usually in late April. Teams are usually split into an Elite, 1st Division and 2nd Division, but the format has varied from year to year. Depending on the number of clubs there are 1 or 2 Women’s Divisions. For the past several years there has also been a separate collegiate championship conducted on a separate weekend at a different location.
- Handball FAQ Home Page: Link
- Direct link to this question: Link
The IHF Trophy is a world-wide competition organized for developing handball nations. As currently structured the competition is conducted in phases with competition taking place in sub-continent, continent and inter-continent phases. The competition is also age based with separate competitions for Youth (U19) Men, Jr (U21) Men, Youth (U18) Women, and Jr (U20) Women. The timing of the competition is structured to parallel the existing Youth and Jr competitions with the Inter-Continental Jr Champion qualifying for the Jr World Championships.
- IHF Inter-Continental Trophy Results (Wikipedia): Link
Note: The North American & Caribbean Handball Confederation (CACHC) is is currently using the IHF Trophy as its Youth and Jr Championships. The winner of the NACHC IHF Trophy (Continental Phase) also qualifies for the World Championships.
- Handball FAQ Home Page: Link
- Direct link to this question: Link
3 basic factors can be attributed to this decline and poor performance.
1) USA athletes often first start playing the game in their early 20’s after their career in other sports have ended. While a simple game in principle, mastering the finer techniques of the game can take years. The USA has always been at a technical disadvantage against top sides.
2) The National Teams have been less successful in recruiting top, natural athletes since the 1996 Olympics. This is, of course, an opinion, but most long term observers of USA Team Handball would generally agree with this statement.
3) Other nations in the Pan-American region have improved their programs substantially. Brazil, and to a lesser extent, Argentina, have dramatically improved their programs from top to bottom. In the 80’s and 90’s a team of great, raw talent athletes could be recruited, assembled, taught the game and have a reasonable expectation that they could beat the other Pan-American Teams that used the same model. As recent results would attest, this is no longer possible.
Note: The USA Men have become more competitive the past few years thanks mostly due to a golden generation of mostly dual citizen Americans.
- Handball FAQ Home Page: Link
- Direct link to this question: Link
The USA has been more competitive in the past, with the high water mark probably being the 1984 Olympic Games. The Men’s team placed 9th, but lost by no more than 3 goals in their 6 matches. The Women’s team placed 5th, but would have won a bronze medal, if they could have turned a 1 goal loss to Germany into a victory in the pool play competition.
Both the Men’s and Women’s National Teams continued to have a measure of respectability for the rest of the 1980’s through the 1996 Olympic Games, occasionally garnering victories in Friendly competitions like the Goodwill Games against European teams. In World Championship and Olympic competition the USA has repeatedly come up short. In particular, the USA men, have the dubious distinction of an 0-0-25 record in World Championship competition. Following the 1996 games, International competitiveness dropped dramatically with losses of 20 or more goals against the top teams becoming commonplace.
Since shifting to a roster primarily consisting of dual citizen athletes based in Europe in 2019 the U.S. men have had more respectable results in international competition. This is primarily due to what might best be described as a golden generation of talent that is better than one would expect from a small talent. The U.S. Women have also utilized more dual citizens since 2019, but have struggled to be competitive.
USA Men’s National Team Results at Every IHF World Championship: Link (Note: the link needs to be updated to include the results of the 2023 World Championships.)
- Handball FAQ Home Page: Link
- Direct link to this question: Link
This earlier article assesses why these analogies may or may not support the development of Team Handball in the United States: http://teamhandballnews.com/news64.html
Yes. The men participated in the 1972, 1976, 1984, 1988 and 1996 Olympics. The Women participated in 1984, 1988, 1992 and 1996
- Handball FAQ Home Page: Link
- Direct link to this question: Link