The Moscow Games went down in Olympic history as the boycott Games.  Due to the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan nearly all Western states refrained from sending their delegations. Thus the IHF, too, was forced to nominate substitutes for the handball tournaments. The number of participants – 12 men’s and 6 women’s teams – and the competition format remained unchanged. Despite their home advantage the Soviet men had to concede victory to the GDR – the team of Paul Tiedemann earned a final score of 23:22 (20:20, 10:10) in the duel of the ‘two brothers’  after extra-time. Thanks to its outstanding goalkeeper Wieland Schmidt the GDR had caused the biggest sensation in the Olympic Tournaments so far. Germany’s top national team scorer ever, Frank Wahl, or later Women’s World Champion coach Lothar Doering were part of that team, which cruised through the main round without losing a point to rank top of the group ahead of Hungary. The Soviet Union, Romania and Yugoslavia were on equal terms in the second group, similar to the Montreal 1976 Games, the Soviet Union finally prevailed due to its goal difference to head for the final. Romania (1976 silver medallist) earned a 20:18 victory over Hungary to win the bronze medal. 

The second women’s tournament in history saw the host establish themselves at the top – and Igor Turtschin became the gold coach of the Soviet Union for the second time. Five wins in five matches brought them three points more to rank ahead of silver medallist Yugoslavia, who conceded a clear 8:18 defeat to the later top team and which lost one point in their match against the GDR. The Germans finally were on equal terms with Yugoslavia but had to settle with a poor goal difference. 

 

Gold: GDR, Silver: URS, Bronze: ROM, 4. HUN - 5. ESP - 6. YUG - 7. POL - 8. SUI - 9. DEN - 10. ALG - 11. CUB - 12. KUW

Women’s Final Ranking:

Gold: URS, Silver: YUG, Bronze: GDR, 4. HUN, 5. TCH, 6. CGO