After 30 fantastic matches, the 4th edition of the IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship has concluded at the Palau d'Esports de Granollers, in Spain, with a dramatic win for the hosts, who came through a rollercoaster final against Japan to seal the gold medal in three sets.

Spain took the opener 13:9, only for Japan to respond in emphatic fashion, running away with the second set 17:5 to force a decider. The hosts held their nerve when it mattered most, closing out a 6:5 win in the deciding set to claim the title 2:1 overall in front of their own crowd.

Following the conclusion of the competition, three individual awards have been granted, representing the best scorer of the 4th IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship, the male Most Valuable Player and the female Most Valuable Player of the competition.

The latter award was sealed by Chile's Luz Carrasco, one of the standout performers for a Chilean side that reached the closing stages of the tournament. Carrasco finished as the competition's top female scorer, with 10 points in five matches at a 64% shooting efficiency (9/14),

Both the top scorer award and the male Most Valuable Player award were sealed by Japan's Shinnosuke Morooka. Going into the final, Morooka sat third in the standings with 34 points, behind Egypt's Magdy Talaat Abdo Abbas on 55 and ahead of the chasing pack, but Japan's loss didn't stop him producing the individual performance of the competition when it mattered most.

Morooka scored 25 of Japan's 31 points across the three sets of the final, more than 80% of his team's output, to finish the championship with 59 points and leapfrog both Talaat Abdo Abbas (55) and Portugal's Ricardo Queirós (48) for the top scorer title.

It capped a remarkable turnaround for the Japanese star, who two years earlier at Egypt 2024 had finished as tournament runner-up in the scoring charts with 71 points, one place behind Talaat Abdo Abbas. This time, despite ending on the losing side in the final, Morooka's Granollers campaign was enough to see him crowned both the competition's top scorer and its Most Valuable Player.