体坛英语新闻：Denmark gives warm welcome to European handball champions

COPENHAGEN, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Danish national handball team's victory on Sunday at the European Championship was grandly celebrated Monday at downtown Copenhagen by thousands of fans.

The celebrating crowd was from across the country, including Crown Prince Frederik, Minister of Culture Uffe Elbaek and Mayor of Copenhagen Frank Jensen.

All hero-players returned to the Dane capital city on Monday afternoon after winning the European Championship, a romantic triumph that more looked like a fairy tale of H. C. Andersen than a sports game.

AGAINST ALL ODDS

The Danish team has been compared with the ugly duckling in the fairy tale of H. C. Andersen who started out in a duck yard but ended becoming a beautiful swan. But this is not a fairy tale. This is modern Danish handball history.

The expectations were high for the young Danish national handball team before the European Championship 2012 in Serbia, which ended Sunday.

However, everything seemed to go wrong from the start for the Danes who had the championship from 2008 in their bags. They lost two of the preliminary fights and only just made it to the second round.

But then things turned again. Just like in a fairy tale of Andersen: First you have to go through a lot of troubles - and then you become a winner.

In the second round it looked almost impossible that Denmark should have a chance for reaching the semifinals. Not only should they win their own fights.

The results from the others should also match like in a puzzle where each little piece has its specific place for the whole picture to appear. The last piece that should fall into place was the result of the fight between Germany and Poland where Poland should win for Denmark to go to the semifinal. The rest is history.

Poland won very surprisingly and Denmark met Spain in the semifinals in a hectic and intense fight where Mikkel Hansen scored the winning goal in the very last minute to the result 25-24.

The fairy tale turned into reality. Denmark made it to the final.

The atmosphere was on a boiling point in the Belgrade arena in the capital of Serbia Sunday afternoon. The two teams in the European Championship final; Denmark and Serbia, met in the preliminary round and Serbia won. The 20,000 Serbian supporters are known for their fierce way of backing up their team, so odds seemed to be against the young Danish team.

But actually the Danes with profiles like right wingback Mikkel Hansen, forward Bo Spellerberg and goalkeeper Niklas Landing managed to keep Denmark in the winning position all the way through the fight.

Only towards the last minutes in the second half the Serbs came close to get a draw, but then they missed a ball and Mikkel Hansen could easily score to 21-18 one minute before time. And even if the Serbs had the last goal, the score 21-19 to Denmark was a reality.

The fairy tale became true.

GRAND CELEBRATION

Thousands of fans from all over the country - including Crown Prince Frederik - was at the City Hall Square in Copenhagen to welcome the hero players back from Belgrade.

"I am here to enjoy seeing how happy the players are for their victory. That makes me happy, too," the Crown Prince said to Danish TV2 at the ceremony.

Fans from all over the country shouted and yelled as the team arrived at the City Hall, some of them had even traveled several hundred kilometers to be a part of the cheer and tribute to the players from the gold winning team.

Like Maiken Kristensen from the small town Oernstrup in Jutland, who was dressed in red and white to show her support for the Danish Players: "I want the boys to know how important this victory is for Denmark," she told Xinhua.

The players themselves jumped up and down in front of the crowd showing their gold medals and the big golden plate they won as European Champions.

No doubt they will have a big party, but as soon as Wednesday they will be back in their normal routines and start training for the next big occasion, the Olympic Games in London this summer.

Team coach Ulrik Wilbek was of course also very happy for the gold medals but he has an even bigger goal, to win the Olympic gold medal.

"To win the Olympic tournament will be an even bigger victory for me and the team. And after we won the European Championship we don't have to qualify for the games, which give us more time to prepare before the Olympic Games start in August," he said.