Canada is hosting the IHF Women’s Youth World Championships in Sherbrooke, Quebec. 12 teams are scheduled to participate, although Cote d’Ivoire has had some transportation problems and hasn’t arrived yet. http://handball2006.ca/spip/article.php3?id_article=145&lang=en In the opening match France had no problem beating Tunisia 32-17 http://handball2006.ca/spip/article.php3?id_article=141&lang=en

The official webpage for the tournament is at http://handball2006.ca/.
Additional information is also available at http://basque-multimedia.com/handball2006/. This site is also providing games for web viewing 3-5 hours after they are played for $4.95.

The short update http://www.ihf.info/front_content.php?idcat=132&idart=383 from the recent IHF Council Meeting contains just enough information to tease and raises a lot of questions:

The elimination of continental federation responsibility to qualify entrants for the World Championships:
– Will there still be several representatives from each continental area?
– Will existing continental championships lose their importance now that they won’t factor into World Championship qualification?

Challenge Trophy Tournament Restructuring
– Does this mean that future challenge trophy tournaments will ignore continental boundaries?
– How will it be decided which nations participate?

World League for Clubs
– What is the point of this when there is such a tremendous gap in quality between the clubs in Europe and the rest of the world?

The IHF website indicates that more information concerning these items will be made available soon. Hopefully that will clear up these questions and others.

The IHF has selected Croatia to host the Men’s World Championships in January 2009 and China will host the Women’s World Championships in December 2009. See the IHF website for more information. http://www.ihf-online.info/front_content.php?idcat=57&idart=378

Last Friday, 14 July 2006, the draw for the Men’s World Championship in Germany was held in Berlin http://ihf.handball-wm-2007.de/front_content.php?idcat=57&idart=340

Analysis:

The Group of Death: As Team Handball is more a case of have’s and have not’s (when compared to soccer), this is a little bit of an exaggeration. Essentially, it means which group has ended up with 3 European teams (plus Tunisia). Those two Groups are Group B in Madgeburg and Group E in Kiel. As Ukraine is arguably the weakest European team, I’ll classify Group E as the Group of Death. Look for the loser of the Hungary – Norway matchup to be bitterly resigned to the President’s Cup.

Pan-American Region Slighted:

Pan American Region Slighted: The draw process called for performance rows 4,3, and 2 to first be placed in groups by a random draw. Then as the host country, Germany, got to select which of the 6 groups it wanted for the opening round. And in the opinion of German Head Coach Heiner Brand, Group C with Poland, Brazil and Argentina was viewed as the easiest group. A slight to be sure, but also arguably, this is an excellent draw for Brazil and Argentina. Beating Germany in Berlin will be difficult, but either team beating Poland is a distinct possibility. Poland’s recent performances on the International Stage have not been sterling. At the 2006 European Championships they placed 10th only managing 1 win (against Ukraine) and 1 tie (against Switzerland) to go along with 4 losses Slovenia(33-29), Spain(34-25), France (31-21), and Germany(32-24). Additionally, they had to come from behind to beat Greece on aggregate in a 2 game series to qualify for the World Championships. Both Brazil and Argentina can be optimistic about their chances to advance. And the Pan Am region will be cheering them on, as a 9th place finish will secure another bid for region in 2009. To secure 9th place they would either need to finish in 4th place (out of 6 teams) in their main round pool- thus qualifying for the quarter finals or finish in 5th place and win the cross-over game for 9th place.

Greenland: Greenland is in pool A and will play Tunisia, Slovenia, and Kuwait. A victory against Tunisia or Slovenia would be epic. Greenland’s best chance for a victory in the opening round will be Kuwait, the Asian Champion.

Australia Draws Tough Bracket: Australia will play in Pool B against 3 European teams: France, Iceland and Ukraine. A victory against any of those teams is unlikely and placing 2nd in the pool would be a major shock. Australia, as the Oceania’s best team has a relatively easy route for qualifying for the World Championships, but a much more difficult route for Olympic Qualification. Because the Oceania region is small and weaker, the Oceania representative must accomplish the following to qualify for the Olympics
– Place 1st-7th at the World Championships OR
– Place 8th- 12th at the World Champions AND place 1st or 2nd at an Olympic Qualification tournament http://www.handballaustralia.org.au/

President’s Cup: Unlike recent World Cup formats, teams that are eliminated in the opening round will not fly home immediately. Instead the 12 eliminated teams (2 from each group) will be divided into 4 new pools of 3 teams each. Two pools for the 3rd place teams and 2 pools for the 4th place teams. Each team will play the other two teams in their pool and then will cross over for placement. This format means that each team will have the opportunity to play against the world’s best in the opening round and then have the opportunity to see how they stack up against the other developing nations. Major kudos for the IOC adding the President’s Cup. http://www.handball-wm-2007.de/front_content.php?idcat=25

The IHF has released more information concerning the new format for Olympic qualification. [link=http://www.ihf.info/MEDIA/16871,0.pdf]New Olympic Qualification Format[/link]

Under the old system, the host nation and 1 representative from each continent (Asia, Africa, Europe, and PAN-America) qualified for the Olympics. The remaining slots were determined by placement at the preceding World Championships. For the Men, the top 7 qualified and for the Women, the top 5 qualified. This gender inequity has now been removed and now both tournaments will have 12 slots.

Under the new system, the host nation and the 4 regions will continue to get 5 of the 12 slots. But only the preceding World Champion will also get a free ticket to Beijing. The remaining 6 slots will be awarded at 3 pre-olympic tournaments, with the 1st and 2nd place teams each punching a ticket for Beijing.

The news release provides some of the details concerning this tournament, but a quick analysis yields several questions that will need further clarification:

– Who gets to host the tournaments? (perhaps, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place teams from the World Championships?)
– What’s the tournament format? (Round robin, with 3 games in 3 days?)
– How will the seeding be done for these tournaments? (The chart in the news release implies a potential structure, but I would argue that this structure needs to rethink how the 3rd and 4th rungs are set. As much as I’d like to think the rest of the world has caught up to Europe, that isn’t the reality yet. Any tournament with only 2 European teams would be seen as an easier path to qualify.)
– Will there be a draw to determine pool allocation? If so, will there be an attempt to balance the continents out like the World Cup draw for Soccer?
– If a Nation places 2nd through 7th at the World Championships, but then wins their Continental automatic bid what happens to their tournament placement? (Does, it go to the next lower placing team at the World Championships?)
– How is Continental Ranking determined at the World Championships for the 2 extra tournament places? (Average placement of the top 3 teams from each continent perhaps?)
– If Australia has to pre-qualify, how will this be done? (A home and away versus some other Nation for the last spot?)