Over the past years, Egypt established themselves as the bona-fide African powerhouse in handball, delivering excellent performance after excellent performance in major international competitions. On their own turf, they secured the title at the last three editions of the CAHB Men’s African Handball Championship, while at the IHF Men’s World Championship, “The Pharaohs” have back-to-back quarter-finals berths.

In 2021, they lost to champions Denmark after a grueling penalty shoot-out, while at Poland/Sweden 2023, Egypt finished on the eighth place, in the last major international competition where Roberto Garcia Parrondo was on the bench. But the biggest performance came at Tokyo 2020, when they ended up on the fourth place, the best-ever performance from the African side in the competition.

Garcia Parrondo, arguably the coach that helped Egypt the most in the last decades, making the team once again relevant between the big powerhouses in men’s handball, is gone, but the Spanish influence is still there, as the team was taken over by Juan Carlos Pastor, another experienced Spanish coach, who plied his trade in Europe, at Hungarian club team OTP Bank-Pick Szeged for a decade before switching to Egypt.

After the fourth place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, when Egypt missed out on a medal by a whisker, the path towards Paris 2024 has been quite straightforward for “The Pharaohs”, who won the 2024 CAHB Men’s African Handball Championship and punched their ticket to the Olympics for the eighth time in history.

The African side delivered a 33:15 win over Guinea, a 34:19 win over Congo and a 35:16 win over Cameroon, before dominating also in the knockout phase, with a 37:25 win in the quarter-finals against Angola, a 30:25 win over Tunisia in the semi-finals and a 29:21 win over Algeria in the final of the 2024 CAHB Men’s African Handball Championship.

Pastor still has a fantastic squad at his disposal, with stalwarts Ali Zein, Yahia Omar and Yehia Elderaa in a powerful and versatile back line, as well as goalkeeper Karim Hendawy and right wing Mohamed Sanad in the roster, ready to deliver some much-needed experience in competitions like the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

However, Egypt will have their work cut out in the preliminary round, where they are due to face four European sides – including the champions and the runners-up at the 2023 IHF Men’s World Championship, Denmark and France, plus Norway and Hungary, which are teams hard to beat. But the African side needs at least one win from these four matches to start thinking about a quarter-finals berth, as they made the top-10 in five of the previous seven appearances at the Olympic Games.

Egypt

Coach: Juan Carlos Pastor

Key Players: Ali Zein (left back), Yahia Omar (right back), Yehia Elderaa (centre back), Mohamed Sanad (right wing)

Qualification for Paris 2024: 2024 CAHB Men’s African Handball Championship: Winners

Previous appearances: 1992: 11th, 1996: 6th, 2000: 7th, 2004: 12th, 2008: 10th, 2016: 9th, 2020: 4th  

Group at Paris 2024: Group B: Denmark, Norway, Hungary, France, Egypt, Argentina