The second edition of the Youth Summer Olympic Games (YOG) including a male and female handball tournament in the official programme will be carried out in Nanjing, China, from 16 to 28 August 2014. After the highly successful premiere in Singapore 2010 with Denmark (women) and Egypt (men) as the first ever YOG handball gold medallists, the qualification for Nanjing is nearly completed by now.

The final spots will be decided in Pan-America: Argentina will host the Men’s Youth qualification tournament in Buenos Aires from 1 to 5 April, while the Women’s Youth qualification event will be staged in Fortaleza, Brazil, from 22 to 26 April. This tournament, the Pan-American championship, is also the qualification for the Women’s Youth World Championship in FYR Macedonia (20 July to 3 August 2014).

By now those nine teams have already qualified for the youth event in Nanjing, where the handball tournaments are staged with each six male and female teams, which are split in two groups of three. 

Men’s tournament: Egypt (Africa), Qatar (Asia), Slovenia (Europe), Norway (Europe)

Women’s tournament: China (host), Angola (Africa), Korea (Asia), Sweden (Europe), Russia (Europe, as Oceania withdrew from participation)

The two best ranked teams of each preliminary round group will face in the semi-finals, while the third ranked teams compete in two placement matches 5/6.

The hosting nation can only participate with one team (either male or female) in a team sports event of the Youth Olympic Games, and China decided to take part in the women’s tournament.

The third edition of the Youth Summer Olympic Games will be staged in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2018.