Paris 2024 - Day 11 (July 27th) - Men's Handball

My apologies. Despite making notes as I went along, I somehow forgot an entire day! It wasn’t until I got to the end and found that I was on the wrong day that I realized what had happened. Must have been a senior moment. While I can’t recall everything, I do have some details and pictures from the day. I hope that you enjoy them!

Today’s event is men’s team handball. Before I went to the summer Olympics the first time in 1996, I had never heard of team handball and I’m guessing that a number of you may not have heard of it either. So here is what you need to know. Team handball came into existence in the early 20^th century in Northern Europe, and may have been used to help football (soccer) players stay in shape during the long, cold winters. It is played on a 40 x 20 m court (about the size of a basketball court). There is a goal, which looks like a small soccer goal at each end and there is a 6 m (20 ft) arc drawn around each goal. Teams consist of 7 players (6 field players plus a goalkeeper) and play with a ball that is about the same size as a volleyball. Players can pass, dribble or shoot and will have to dribble or pass every three seconds. Only the goalkeeper can use their feet. No one except the goalkeeper is allowed in the 6 m arc, and any player trying to shoot on goal closer than the arc has to jump before entering the arc and shoot before they land. There is a lot of contact outside the arc and the players tend to look like American football linebackers.

Today’s event is men’s team handball at Paris Arena Sud 6. Here is the view from outside:

Each of these colors are long, skinny display screens. It really looks cool in the rainy weather we have today and probably looks even better at night.

The first match is between Spain and Slovenia, and we see some familiar referees:

If they look similar, they should. They are identical twins Charlotte and Julie Bonaventura from France, and they are one of the top referee pairs in the world, equally at home refereeing men’s or women’s games. We recognized them because they called one of the games that we saw in London in 2012. Then, it was a major news event for women to call a men’s game, but now it is no big deal. This is partly because of how well they control the game.

Slovenia jumps out to a 11-8 lead after the first half against the higher ranked Spanish team, but Spain comes back in the second half led by their best player Daniel Fernandez and wins 25-22. In the second game, we have Egypt vs Hungary. Even though Egypt has been the top African team in the last 7 continent championships, no one is quite sure how good they are against the best teams from Europe. It turns out that they were pretty good. Led by Yahia Omar and Ahmed Adel with 9 goals each, Egypt led 19-15 at half time and maintained the lead to win 35-32. Here are some of the pictures that I took:

Every time I watch a handball match, I wish that I had known about this sport when I was younger. It looks like it would have been a lot of fun to play! Steps for the day: 8,355.