Cape Verde (CPV), Gambia (GAM), Guinea-Bissau (GBS), Guinea (GUI), Mali (MLI), Senegal (SEN), Sierra Leone (SLE) and hosts Mauritania (MTN) are busy preparing in capital city Nouakchott for the IHF Trophy Africa - Zone II which throws-off tomorrow, before finishing next week, on Thursday 29 March.

 

The IHF Trophy has been reconfigured for 2018 onwards and now includes two age categories - Junior (born on or after January 1, 1998) and Youth (born on or after January 1, 2000).

 

The best teams from both categories will advance to the Continental Phase, with the winners of the IHF Trophy Intercontinental Junior Championships earning an automatic spot at the 2019 IHF Men’s Junior World Championships in Spain.

 

IHF Trophy Africa - Zone II

 

The tournament in Nouakchott will be split into the two age competitions with eight teams in the junior section and seven in the youth. Both competitions feature two preliminary groups each before the top teams go straight through to the semi-final stage.

 

All games will be played across the two venues of the ‘Institut Supérieur de la Jeunesse et des Sports’ and the ‘Nouvelle Maison des Jeunes’.

 

Youth Competition – Preliminary Groups

Group A: SEN, MLI, MTN, SLE

Group B: GUI, CPV, GAM, GBS

 

Junior Competition – Preliminary Groups

Group A: GUI, MLI, GAM, SLE

Group B: SEN, CPV, MTN

 

“For a few days now, the organising committee has been active in the running of this major sports event," said Medoune Adama Diop, President of the Mauritanian Handball Federation (FMHB) to local media earlier this week.

 

“We have the support of the Mauritanian government for this event,” said Ba Hamady, Vice-President of FMHB and Chairman of the Communication, Marketing and Sponsorship Committee. “We are a young federation with strong ambitions and will do everything we can to meet the challenge of organisation and participation.”

 

All teams have been busy preparing over the past few months with several training camps and friendly matches.

 

Senegal held a training camp at the Stade Lat Dior in the city of Thies, east of Dakar ahead of the tournament which was invaluable to U18 Senegal coach Mame Ngor Seck. “We started off with an open test match to see the players we had,” he said to local Senegal media.

 

“After this we then improved the technical and tactical work in attack, before training on the defensive aspects. We had 15 days of preparation so concentrated on the physical aspects within the ball game. Our current group is already performing.”

 

In addition to the games, the IHF will conduct referee and coaching clinics, as is standard practice at all IHF Trophy competitions.

 

In 2019, the IHF Trophy will be for junior and youth women with the same format and qualification potential for the following years’ IHF Junior World Championships (2020).

 

The IHF Trophy will then continue to alternate between men’s and women’s competitions each year.