Greece looks forward to Men’s Junior WCh

 You can spend your holidays in Greece in July; but you can also come to Greece in July to become Men’s Junior Handball World Champion in Thessaloniki. From 17 to 31 July the 18th title contests of the men’s juniors will take place in the port city. Ideally the sons will fight for the title and medals, whereas their friends and relatives will largely support their teams during their holidays. The matches will be carried out in the following four arenas: the YMCA hall, the PAOK Sports Arena, the Mikra 3 hall and the DAK Evosmos Arena.

 24 teams will take part. The title holder is Germany who prevailed over Denmark in the final in Cairo two years ago. Not only are there as many participants as at the seniors, also the President’s Cup will be played in Hellas. Greece can rely on their organizational experience in this regard, as after all the South Europeans are already hosting a Junior WCh for the second time after 1991. The Junior WCh also looks back on a long history. In 1977 the men’s juniors celebrated their first title contests in Sweden; the Soviet Union won back then. Having won seven titles, USSR and its successor state Russia are still the measure of all things for men’s junior teams. But also former Yugoslavia showed often enough their excellent junior work, the Scandinavian countries did the same a bit later. And also an African country caused quite a stir in the junior field. The Egyptian team – host of the 1993 JWCh – won the title in their own country, which was a novelty in men’s handball, as for the men it has so far been the only WCh title a non-European team could claim. Thus the favourites are well determined also this year: A European team will probably be the winner when the decisive matches will be played on the last day of July. Others will then have already started their trip home – or will have decided in favour of the other option mentioned at the beginning – after all, holidays in Greece are nice, too.