With expectation, Spain women come to Chengdu for gold

On paper, Juan Pablo Morillo’s Spain team are one of the big favourites to take gold at Chengdu 2025.

Recently-crowned as European champions, winners of the first two stages of the 2025 IHF Beach Handball Global Tour (BHGT) and with a squad depth that could turn out two, if not three top-level national sides they are thirsty to add to their gold medal haul this year already.

And the conveyor belt of talent does not stop there – their youth women won the 2025 IHF Women’s Youth Beach Handball World Championship in June.

Despite their current dominance, Spain are only appearing at their second-ever The World Games, having won bronze on their debut back in 2017.

Back then, they did not meet their 2025 preliminary group opponents Vietnam, Germany or Denmark, but they have faced them two of them in the past 12 months, Vietnam seen off 2-0 at the 2024 IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship in China last year with Germany defeating them 2-1 in the quarter-final.

“There’s no doubt that we’re in the toughest group, with very strong opponents, which is a challenge for us because we’ll have to play at our best if we want to compete for the medals,” said coach Morillo.

“The World Games are one of the main objectives we’ve set for this year, and once there, the priority will be to try to be in the fight for the medals. We face this competition with high motivation and, from a gameplay perspective, we’re arriving at a good moment—our recent results reinforce our style of play. 

“First of all, we want to try to reach our best level of performance in order to be competitive, just as we were in the European Championship, and we believe that’s the path to fight for the medals. We believe that if we reach the level of play, we showed during the knockout stages of the European Championship, we believe we can achieve victory.”

Morillo has named a 10-women squad, which includes a wealth of talent such as captain Asun Batista, goalkeeper Patricia Encinas, right wing Alba Diaz and left wing Jimena Laguna Contreras. European Championship MVP Sara Hernandez is not named in the squad.

As is the case with all beach handball players, the sport does not provide full-time employment and Spain are no exception with a wide variety of roles and jobs within the squad.

Defensive specialist Violeta Gonzalez works as a ski and snowboard instructor during the winter, while captain Asun Batista fulfilled her dream of becoming a flight attendant, like her mother. Diaz, who was a runner-up in rhythmic gymnastics at the Spanish national championships and got into handball by chance, is currently studying to finish her medical degree, while defensive specialist Maria Trujillo is also studying, but criminology, on her way to becoming a police officer. Goalkeeper Miriam Sempere is a physiotherapist.

Diaz and Gonzalez were both presented with special ‘100’ national team shirts at the recent BHGT stage in Spain for surpassing 100 appearances for their country – a number well-exceeded by Batista and Encinas, who both sit around the 150 mark and who both won the IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship with Spain in 2016.

“We are very happy because we've been on a good path,” said Batista ahead of Chengdu 2025. “We started in Tunisia in the first stage of the BHGT, winning convincingly against most teams. We're also very happy and motivated coming from the European Championship, where we had a great tournament. Around the halfway point, we managed to put all the pieces together and played with much more consistency from then on. We're heading into this next stage very motivated.

“We have a lot of confidence in the work we're doing, and the only thing we really need is to stay focused and give 100% in order to play our best game,” she added. “We have a clear game system, but in the end, this is beach handball - it's all about who makes the fewest mistakes. We're trying to reduce those errors that sometimes hurt us, and I believe if we manage that, we’ll definitely be in the top three.”

Coach: Juan Pablo Morillo
Key players: María Asuncion Batista (Centre Back), Jimena Laguna Contreras (Left Wing), Patricia Encinas (Goalkeeper), Alba Diaz Gonzalez (Right Wing)
Qualification information: 5th – 2024 IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship
History in tournament: 2001-2013: DNQ, 2017: 3rd, 2022: DNQ
Group at The World Games Chengdu 2025: Group A – Vietnam, Spain, Germany, Denmark