In a record-setting final, Denmark overpowered Germany with a flawless performance, sealing their eighth win in eight matches and securing their second medal in the men’s handball competition of the Olympic Games, with a 39:26 win.

The win also marked the retirement of the all-time top goal scorer at the Olympic Games, Mikkel Hansen, who was sent off with a gold medal, just like Norway’s centre back Stine Bredal Oftedal one day before, in the women’s handball competition at Paris 2024. 

PARIS 2024 OLYMPIC GAMES
FINAL
Germany vs Denmark 26:39 (12:21)

There are multiple ways to win the gold medal at the Olympic Games. All of them involve winning the final by at least one goal. That usually does it.

But it can be a grind, like seven of the eight Olympics finals, when the winners secured the gold by winning with two goals at most. Or it can be the Denmark way at Paris 2024. Which is usually easier. 

Three years ago, at Tokyo 2020, Denmark conceded the final against France and had to settle for silver, after a 23:25 loss. This time around, Denmark pulled no punches and set record after record.

To score 21 goals in the first half against any opponent is no easy feature. Denmark became the first team to do it in an Olympics final. Leading by nine goals at the break was also a new record in the Olympic final, beating the previous biggest lead, set by Yugoslavia against Czechoslovakia at Munich 1972, 12:5, by two goals.

And they did that with ease, completing probably the best first half ever in an Olympics final, scoring only two goals less than in the entire match against France at Tokyo 2020. Without even scoring a goal in the last four minutes and 51 seconds, when Germany finally woke up.

There was no apparent weakness in this Denmark team. Backs Mathias Gidsel and Simon Pytlick each scored four goals in the first half. Left wing Magnus Landin Jacobsen, who was sought for obsessively in the first part of the match due to Germany paying too much attention to Denmark’s backs, also scored four times.

And the lead grew bigger and bigger. Germany turned the ball over seven times, with the pressure finally getting to a team which had previously lost only one match at Paris 2024. After eight minutes into the match, they were down a single goal, 6:5. Seven minutes later, the gap grew to seven goals, 12:5.

All with Denmark converting 87% of their shots, with an absolutely flawless display in the first part of a match which looked well-balanced on paper, especially after the reigning world champions won their previous knockout matches at Paris 2024, against Sweden (32:31) in the quarter-finals and Slovenia (31:30) in the semi-finals, by a single goal.

After each match, Denmark’s coach, Nikolaj Jacobsen, was more livid than happy. He told time and time again that his players did not respect their assignments. This time around, they did. And by the 36th minute of the match, Denmark were cruising to a 26:14 lead, the largest in history ever recorded in the Olympics final.

With Gidsel still strong, despite playing for more than seven hours at Paris 2024, the right back also set his sights on the records he could break. First, with his eighth goal of the match, the right back became the top goal scorer of this edition of the Olympics.

The right back pushed until the end, with another record on the board tied in the 48th minute, when he converted a fast throw-off for his 10th goal of the match, to tie Mikkel Hansen’s record for scoring in a single edition of the Olympic Games, 61, set three years earlier, at Tokyo 2020.

By that time, Gidsel himself had half of Germany’s total output in the match. But there was no stopping the 2023 IHF Male World Player of the Year, who finished the match with 11 goals, enough to become the single all-time scorer in an edition of the Olympics, with 62 goals.

Back to the match, Denmark pushed through until the end to set some more records. This was the largest-ever win in the history of the Olympics finals, beating the previous record of seven goals set by the Soviet Union against the Republic of Korea at Seoul 1988. 

The Scandinavian side also scored the largest number goals ever in an Olympics final, with the previous record also set by the Soviet Union against Korea, 32, at Seoul 1988.

All in probably the best 60 minutes ever played by a team in the final of the Olympic Games, with Denmark cruising to a 39:26 spellbinding win, which sets the benchmark for a performance in such a big setting.

For legend Hansen and team captain Niklas Landin, as the former retires from handball, while the latter from his international career, it was a superb farewell, in the best possible conditions, a match where Denmark pulled no punches and wrote history in their way. The Denmark way.

In their third Olympics final in a row, Denmark secured the second gold medal, becoming the fifth country in history after France, the Soviet Union, Croatia and Yugoslavia to clinch the Olympic Games title in the men’s handball competition at least twice.

It also completes a fantastic few years for Denmark, which three-peated at the 2019, 2021 and 2023 IHF Men’s World Championship editions, but also marks the first flawless display in the Olympics for a team since Croatia did it at Athens 2004.