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
There are multiple paths for Olympic Qualification, but nations initially qualify via their performance at either the World Championships or a Continental Championship. Here is how the 12 Olympic slots have been awarded for the past several Olympics. (The format is the same for both Men’s and Women’s Qualification)
- Olympic Host: 1 Slot
- Current World Champion: 1 Slot
- European Champion: 1 Slot
- African Champion: 1 slot
- Asian Champion: 1 Slot
- America’s Champion 1 Slot
- Olympic Qualification Tournaments: 6 Slots
Olympic Qualification Tournaments
The IHF organizes three separate tournaments, each with four nations. The four nations play a round robin tournament with the top two nations from each tournament qualifying for the Olympics. Teams qualify for these Olympic Qualification Tournaments based on their final rank in either the most recent World Championships or Continental Championships. The final composition of these tournaments is often somewhat complicated as there is a hierarchy in terms of qualification path and if, for example, a team wins their continental championship they directly qualify for the Olympics and the next ranked team is awarded their qualification tournament slot.
- 2024 Olympic Qualification (Men): Link
- 2024 Olympic Qualification (Women): Link
- 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
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
The IHF organizes aged based World Championships for both men and women every 2 years. The Men’s Youth (U19) and Men’s Jr (U21) World Championships are held in odd years and the Women’s Youth (U18) and Women’s Jr (U20) World Championships are held in even years. These championships take place in the summer and the timing of these events factor into age based requirements.
- Age Requirements for World Championships: Calendar years are used to determine the maximum age of participants. In principle an athlete can’t turn (UXX +1) in the calendar year of the tournament. As an example, for the Men’s Youth (U19) World Championships held in 2019, all athletes had to be born in the year 2000 or later. If an athlete had been born in 1999, they would turn 20 years old in 2019 and therefore would be ineligible. Because of this athletes are often identified and grouped by their birth year (e.g. 2000, 2001, etc)
- Age Requirements for World Championship Qualification: Most continental federations have continental championships that serve as qualification for the World Championships. Depending on the timing for these events the age requirement may shift a year younger. This is intended to make the rosters consistent from qualification to the World Championships. As an example, Europe typically hosts their Men’s European Youth Championship is even years and the event is classified as a (U18) tournament. The nations that qualify then play in the World Championship (U19) event in the following year. The same principle also applies for IHF trophy events that serve as qualification for the World Championships.
- Specific Age Requirements for Upcoming World Championships
- 2022 Women’s Youth (U18) WC: Born in 2004 or later
- 2022 Women’s Jr (U20) WC: Born in 2002 or later
- 2023 Men’s Youth (U19) WC: Born in 2004 or later
- 2023 Men’s Jr (U21) WC: Born in 2002 or later
- Specific Age Requirements for Upcoming IHF Trophy Competitions
- To be updated when the tournaments are scheduled
- Handball FAQ Home Page: Link
- Direct link to this question: Link