Beach Handball Events
A Competitive season on the sand
Champions Cup 2024, ebt Finals 2024 and Beach Handball Championship 2024
The calendar of annual beach handball events came to an end on 13 October in Porto Santo, Portugal, where the Champions Cup was held for the third consecutive year. The Danish Beachhandball Dream were the women’s champions and GRD Leça - Spar from Portugal won the men’s title.
Highlighting how competitive the European beach handball scene has become, The Danish Beachhandball Dream placed 12th at the ebt Finals, which were held in Lacanau, France and opened the season in June. Conversely, the winners of the ebt Finals title in the men’s competition were Portuguese team Escola de Formação de Espinho - Os Tigres / LEVEL, who finished seventh at the Champions Cup. Spanish side CBMP Ciudad de Málaga won the women’s trophy at the ebt Finals.
The women’s All-star Team at the ebt Finals featured Mariam Gonzalez Llambrich as MVP, Sabrina Oliveira as goalkeeper, Gabriella Landi as defender and Pauline Borrmann as top scorer. The ebt Finals All-star Team on the men’s side featured Miguel Martins as MVP, Balázs Nagy as goalkeeper, Tomislav Laus as defender and Javier Delgado Sanchez as top scorer.
At the Champions Cup, Meike Kruijer was named MVP in the women’s competition, Paula Vera was All-star Team goalkeeper, Johanne Uhrhammer was best defender and Sara Pinho was top scorer. The men’s MVP was Ivan Juric, goalkeeper was Ricardo Castro, best defender was Francisco Santos and top scorer was Jakob Merrild.
Alongside the two club competitions, the calendar of events also included the Beach Handball Championships 2024, held in Varna, Bulgaria in July. The national team tournament features teams not already qualified for the Beach Handball EURO the following year.
France and Sweden both celebrated two sets of medals at the Beach Handball Championships 2024 — but neither of the trophies. Poland were the winners in the men’s category, ahead of Sweden as runners-up and France as bronze medallists. In the women’s tournament, Hungary took the title, with France placing second and Sweden in third.
YAC 16 EHF Beach Handball EURO
Netherlands and Hungary celebrate titles
Six nations celebrated the medals at the Men’s and Women’s 16 EHF Beach Handball EURO 2024, where the Netherlands were champions in the women’s competition and Hungary took the men’s trophy. The Netherlands beat France in the final, while Croatia defeated Hungary to clinch the last piece of silverware in the women’s tournament. On the men’s side, Hungary won the title-deciding game against Spain, and Germany beat Croatia for bronze.
The top scorers in each competition were clear: From Czechia, Matouš Khek scored 218 points to lead the men’s tournament ahead of Spain’s Jesus Garcia on 166. In the women’s competition, Spain’s Carlota Bravo García contributed 199 points, with Croatia’s Helena Furcic scoring 124 to rank second.
The medal matches in the women’s competition saw straight set wins for the victors. The Netherlands beat France 28:20 in the first set then 19:14 in the second. Croatia had a tougher time taking the bronze medal from Hungary, winning the first set 19:16 and the second 20:16. Hungary also gave the Netherlands a big challenge in the semi-final, winning the first set 22:18 before the Dutch won the second 20:19 then the required shootout 13:12. In their semi-final, France won 2:0 against Croatia.
The two finalists won their quarter-finals 2:0, with the Netherlands knocking out hosts Bulgaria and France eliminating Norway. Croatia and Hungary won their quarter-finals 2:1, with Croatia defeating Germany and Hungary beating Spain.
While the Netherlands had a perfect record of wins in the preliminary round, the other medallists did not — France ranked second in their group and Croatia placed third in the same group as the Netherlands. The men’s competition had a dramatic final where Hungary lost the first set to Spain 18:20, then won the second 21:18 and the shootout 15:14. Germany beat Croatia 2:0 in the 3/4 placement match.
The two semi-finals saw straight-sets wins for Spain against Germany and Hungary versus Croatia. In the quarter-finals, three of the four semi-finalists took 2:0 victories, with Germany knocking out Portugal, Hungary defeating Czechia and Spain beating Ukraine. Croatia had a tough time overthrowing Sweden, winning the first set 21:20, losing the second 27:22, and then taking the shootout 7:6.
With 16 teams in the men’s competition to 18 in the women’s, the tournament formats were different. While the women played only a preliminary round to determine the quarter-finalists, the men played a preliminary then a main round. Not one of the men’s quarter-finalists made it through both phases unscathed, with all recording at least one loss on the path to the knockout round.