We made it! After years of inequality regarding the number of participants in the men’s and women’s tournament the goal of equality of 12 participating teams each was finally reached in Beijing. The Games saw two teams which became the Olympic champions for the first time but which had been among the world’s top for quite a while: France secured the gold in the men’s competition, Norway in the women’s competition. Following a successful debut at the Athens Games, the format including the preliminary round, the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals/placement matches remained unchanged. 

A first surprise in the men’s tournament was that World champions Germany dropped out of the tournament after the preliminaries – similar to Korea’s top rank after the preliminaries which had earned 6:4 points such as Denmark and Iceland, which ranked behind, as well as Russia (one point behind). France remained unbeaten to rank at the top of the second group ahead of Poland, Croatia and Spain, and all of them qualified for the quarter-finals. France, which had lost to Russia in the round of the top eight nations at the Athens Games, improved then to overcome that same opponent 27:24, European champions Denmark (24:26 against Croatia) and Asian champions Korea (24:29 against Spain) were eliminated in the quarter-finals, Iceland surprisingly outranked vice-World champions Poland 32:30 to become the fourth team to advance to the semi-finals. And the handball team from the land of the geysers did not stop there, as they clearly overcame Spain 36:30 in the semi-finals while France earned a close 25:23 victory over double Olympic champions Croatia. Finally Spain secured a 35:29 (14:12) win over Croatia to secure the bronze medal. France earned their first ever Olympic gold. Despite their 23:28 defeat, Iceland’s silver medal was the country’s greatest Olympic achievement ever. Spain’s Juanin Garcia won the top scorer crown. 

The women’s tournament – triple Olympic champions Denmark sensationally failed to qualify for both the 2007 WCh and Beijing – saw the final duel between Norway and Russia, who had come to Beijing as the World champions. Both top teams had proved predominant throughout the preliminaries. While the Norwegians cruising to an easy 31:24 quarter-final victory over Sweden, Russia was unsettled for most of the match against the Frenchwomen but brought home and dry a narrow 32:31 win. Moreover Korea (31:23 against China) and Hungary (34:30 against Romania) made through to the semi-finals. Despite their close 20:22 defeat the Hungarian ladies did not have a single chance against the Russian side. On the other hand the Norway-Korea duel proved a clash. When the final whistle sounded Gro Hammerseng netted to secure the 29:28 victory over the Asian side – it was the dream final. While Korea took comfort in winning the bronze medal (39:33 (15:13) win over Hungary) the final was easily decided. Norway claimed a 18:13 half-time lead, the final score was 34:27 – six months after the Olympic triumph coach Marit Breivik after her many achievements resigned. Romania’s Ramona Maier scored 56 goals to become the top scorer. 

 

Men’s Final Ranking: Gold: FRA, Silver: ISL, Bronze: ESP, 4. CRO – 5. POL – 6. RUS –7. DEN – 8.KOR – 9.GER – 10.EGY – 11. BRA – 12.CHN

Women’s Final Ranking:  Gold: NOR, Silver: RUS, Bronze: KOR, 4. HUN, 5. FRA, 6. CHN, 7. ROU, 8. SWE, 9. BRA, 10. KAZ, 11. GER, 12. ANG