The People’s Republic of China make their debut at an IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship after qualifying directly as hosts.

Relatively unknown on the international stage, China’s men have appeared in just one AHF Men’s Beach Handball Asian Championships, which took place last year.

In the continental event held in Bali, Indonesia, they opened up their campaign with a loss against the host nation via shoot-out (22:24, 20:17, SO 6:7) before picking up themselves to record a 2-0 (18:14, 21:14) victory over Hong Kong.

That would prove to be their only victory in Bali, with a comprehensive 0-2 (10:32, 14:30) loss against Vietnam and tight 1-2 (12:24, 16:8, SO 6:7) loss against Kuwait to wrap up their preliminary campaign and with it, no chance of competing for the medals.

They went straight through to a 9/10 placement match against fellow continental debutants Republic of Korea, which they lost 0-2 (18:23, 16:19).

Former national indoor men’s player Zhu Wenxin was brought in following their continental ranking and he is no stranger to playing on a global stage, with one of his career highlights representing his nation on home soil at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

While the 44-year-old from Heilongjiang province has little to choose from in terms of experience, his provisional squad does feature a core of players who have international experience.

The trio of An Hui province players: Can Zhang, Guangxu Liu and Gao Guozheng were amongst the points in Bali, supported by the pivot pair from Shan Dong, Tianzhao Liu and Xiang Xu.

Gao was particularly important for the Chinese in Bali scoring 23 points in that tight opening loss, before ending with 53 points overall in the five games played. Fushuai Xie, who was also a key player in Bali, does not appear in the provisional squad list for China 2024 submitted by coach Wenxin.

As hosts, Wenxin and his colleagues at the Chinese Handball Association had the option of choosing which preliminary group they would be placed in, and in a surprise to some observers, they elected to choose group B, which sees them go up against Brazil, Spain and Tunisia.

This likely means that their decision was based on their thinking that a positive result was more likely against the African champions, more than any of the other lower-ranked teams in the other groups and as such, been identified as a must-win to qualify as one of three teams to progress through to the main round in Pingtan.

It is likely too that it could just mean that China wants to use the preliminary group to test themselves against some of the best teams in their own continents and in the world as they look to continue their development on the global stage.

Coach: Zhu Wenxin

Key Players: Can Zhang, Gao Guozheng, Tianzhao Liu, Xiang Xu

Qualification information: Hosts

History in Tournament: 2004-2022: DNQ

Group at China 2024: Group B: Brazil, People’s Republic of China, Spain, Tunisia