Host China return to The World Games after 24 years

When beach handball made its debut at The World Games – back in 2001 in Japan – it was officially a demonstration sport.

China’s 2-0 opening day loss will go down in history as the first-ever women’s beach handball game played at The World Games, and they went on to finish fifth out of six teams, thanks to two shoot-out wins against Togo, first in the preliminary group stage and then again in the 5-6 play-off.

Head coach Xi Shang has been involved with beach handball in the country since 2016, most recently guiding the women’s youth side to ninth at the 2025 IHF Women’s Youth Beach Handball World Championship in Tunisia in July.

With one eye on the future, 13 of his 20-name provisional squad list had birthdays either in 2008 or 2009, a youthful side featuring potential as the nation looks to expand their footprint on the sport at an international level.

But all good teams come with a mixture of youth and experience and none are more experienced than the pair of specialist Shen Ping and centre back Zhang Tianjie, who have 264 national team appearances between them.

As host nation, China had the right to decide what group they appeared in and they chose group B, complete with Croatia, Portugal and Argentina – three teams they have never met before in The World Games.

However, they did meet them 12 months ago. Portugal saw off the hosts at the 2024 IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship in China – 2-0 in the preliminary round, while Argentina defeated them 2-0 and Croatia 2-1 in the main round.

“The two world championships last year and The World Games this year will obviously improve the popularity of beach handball in China,” said the coach to ihf.info ahead of Chengdu 2025.

“I can already see the progression of the sport – I have been to beach handball world championships previously, but at that time, the tactics of all the teams I would say were not that ‘mature’. Now, the teams, the sport itself is fast growing, and we already saw in Tunisia that teams advanced in their tactics and their skills considerably.

“We all hope that one day beach handball can make it into the Olympic Games, in addition to the Youth Olympic Games already, as it can be very influential there.”

2024 was the last competitive action for China’s women, who did not compete in the 2025 AHF Women’s Asian Beach Handball Championships in Oman in May.

Coach: Xi Shang
Key players: Shen Ping (Specialist), Zhang Tianjie (Centre Back)
Qualification information: Hosts
History in tournament: 2001: 5th, 2005-2022: DNQ
Group at The World Games Chengdu 2025: Group B – Croatia, Portugal, Argentina, People’s Republic of China