This years IHF Trophy for the Central American Zone in Nicaragua has ended and Guatemala have prevailed, in both men’s and women’s tournaments, and will be proceeding to the continental phase. The hosts finished runners-up in the women’s tournament and third in the men’s, with El Salvador for the women and Costa Rica for the men making up the remainder of the top three. Both male and female teams of Panama and Honduras didn’t make it through the initial group stages and, the women’s teams especially, headed home with many positives to take away despite having managed only 25 goals between them.
Even though both Panama and Honduras endured such heavy defeats they continued in good spirit and played with the passion so often displayed at IHF Trophy events.
El Salvador for the men, who were beaten by the hosts 20:24, and Costa Rica for the women, who were beaten by El Salvador 12:11, missed out on the medals.
There was a clear winner In both semi-final matches for the ladies who, in both games, looked certain to win at the end of the first period with Guatemala leading El Salvador 9:2 (25:7 final score), and Nicaragua leading Costa Rica 20:6 (39:17 final score). The same was true for only one of the men’s semi-finals with Guatemala leading El Salvador 13:5 and finally going on to beat them 32:10. The other men’s semi-final was not so clear cut with Nicaragua trailing Costa Rica by only four goals at the end of the first period, however, the Costa Ricans upped the ante in the second period and finished with a 14 goal lead (32:18).
The Guatemalans did the double in Nicaragua as both men and women rounded off a fantastic week of handball with a men’s victory over Costa Rica (31:24) and a woman’s victory over Nicaragua (31:27), who turned around a one goal deficit taken into the second period.
This means that for the second time in a row, Guatemala will represent this Zone in the Pan American Continental Phase of the IHF Trophy. It is worth saying that the Guatemalan Handball Federation has already submitted its application to host the Continental Phase of the Event.
Parallel to the tournaments, the IHF organized a courses for both coaches and referees which were executed by Mr. Yvon Laurans (FRA) and Mr. Vincente Breto (ESP) on behalf of the International Handball Federation.
Please find the tournament summary hereafter: