Qualified for Beijing: Olympic Handball tournament complete

The final places for the men's Olympic handball tournament in Beijing in August were allocated last weekend at the Olympic qualification tournaments held in Paris (France), Wroclaw (Poland) and Zadar (Croatia). The players from Croatia, Spain, France, Iceland, Poland and Russia will thus be joining their German, Brazilian, Chinese, Danish and Egyptian counterparts.

Parity in Beijing

For their part, the women's teams are also known. For the first time, the women's Olympic handball tournament will have as many teams as the men's version, i.e. 12. Apart from China, automatically qualified as the host country, we shall see women's teams from Germany, Angola, Brazil, Korea, France, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Norway, Romania, Russia and Sweden competing in Beijing.

Where and when?

The Olympic handball tournaments will begin on 9 August 2008 at the Olympic Sports Centre Gymnasium for the preliminary rounds, and the National Indoor Stadium for the semi-finals and finals. We shall have to wait until 23 August to find out who succeeds the Danish women's team, and the following day, 24 August, to know who succeeds the Croatian men's team.

(Credit: IOC. Click here for further information.)