Semi final: Russia – Kazakhstan 41:19 (18:10)

Like women, like juniors, like girls: Russia demonstrated their world leading role in women’s handball again: After the women had reached the Olympics final in Beijing and won the World Championship in China and the Juniors were finalists in Korea now the Russian girls have proved their favourite role in the YOG semi final in Singapore. In an absolute dominant manner the Russian beat Kazakhstan in the first semi 41:19 (18:10). The Central Asian team didn’t have the glimpse of a chance and now play for the Bronze medal against the loser of the second semi Denmark – Brazil. Again the Russian defense including the very strong goalkeepers Vakhterova and Kondrashina was the match winner. They blocked the Kazakhstan attacks and started the counter attack match play. In minute 13 the Asians still could hope for a surprise at the score of 5:7, but then the Russian machine started rolling over them by scoring a decisive series of 17:6 for the score of 24:11 in minute 36. Nearly all Russian field players scored, as they have the team with the strongest alternatives on the bench – a fact Kazakhstan couldn’t cope with. By changing nearly the whole team the Russians could save powers for the final – even in this constellation the Asians couldn’t come closer – in contrast: in the end the distance were 22 goals. Dinara Ulumbetova scored five goals for Kazakhstan, Garanina and Chopikyan scored each seven times for the Russians, who had a great shot efficiency of 61 percent of their attacks.