The V Beach Handball World Championships were opened on Saturday 7 July in Oman. “We are the youngest child of the handball family”, Giampiero Masi, Chairman of the IHF Beach Working Group said. The group was founded in 2007 and the Italian was its Chairman from the beginning on. This decision was logical, because of the idea, to play handball on beach was coming from Italy. In 1990 the C.O.N.I. (Italian Olympic Committee) member Prof. Briani came up with the idea to create a new kind of handball as a vehicle for promoting the classic sport of handball on the one hand. The second reason was that he hoped to install an attractive summer holiday activity. Beach Handball was officially recognized by the IHF in 1994, the rules were fixed during the IHF-Congress in the Netherlands in the same year.

“Now we have the 5^th World Championships and our child developed gorgeous”, Masi said. And really, it is a good child. The championships take part on locations with sun guarantee. The matches are spectacular and the atmosphere is beautiful. In Oman 24 teams from 20 nations take part. For the second time after the WCh in Turkey two years before, there will be a live coverage on TV, and IHF and the host offer also a live stream on web (www.ihf.info or www.oman2012.info). And the host sensed no cost, invested a lot of money in infrastructure. After the tournament the court will stay maintained as a part of Al Musannah Sports City located 125 km north of Muscat, capital of Oman. But now the handball family performs the V Beach Handball World Championship – only 20 years after the first international tournament ever. What a successful story!