Memories of their gold medal at the 2016 IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship in Budapest, Hungary still abound within the Spanish women’s team with a trio of players from the title-winners eight years ago named in Juan Pablo Morillo’s provisional squad in Patricia Conejero, Patricia Encinas and Asuncion Batista.

And a fourth place in 2018 was then bettered last time out at Greece 2022, where Spain made it all the way to the final. Their preliminary group campaign saw wins against the USA and China 2024 opponents Vietnam (who they also beat at the 2019 ANOC World Beach Games), before going down 0-2 to eventual fifth place side Denmark. The main round featured wins against Portugal and Thailand, but another loss, against the host nation, Greece.

However, an impressive quarter-final 2-0 win against Brazil set up a rematch against the Greeks and Spain made no mistake this time, winning 2-0, but the unprecedented Germany – on an historic winning run – were a step too far in the final and Spain lost 0-2. Batista’s 124 points in Greece saw her end fourth in the goalscoring charts.

But you do not need to go that far back to highlight the strength of Spain as just last year, they won bronze at the 2023 European Championship in Portugal. 

After opening with five wins (Croatia, Romania, Poland, Greece, Netherlands), they lost 0-2 to Denmark but still made the quarter-finals where they defeated Croatia. But, again, they came up against Germany, who dispatched them via shoot-out. However, Spain saw off neighbours Portugal for bronze, 2-1, to gain a much-valued podium place once again.

A few weeks later, at the European Games, Alba Diaz Gonzales – later named MVP of the event – led Spain to silver in a run which started and ended with losses against Denmark. Sandwiched in-between were wins against Norway twice and Greece, with a loss against Poland.

Spain’s most recently international event was in September 2023 which saw them return to the same venue as Greece 2022, to win the Mediterranean Beach Games, defeating host nation Greece 2-0 (24:16, 20:12) in the final. The two sides had met earlier on in the competition, in the round-robin preliminary stage, with Spain taking a shoot-out victory, 2-1. That was the only set that Spain dropped in their eight victories en route to gold. 

In May, coach Morillo upped the preparation for his side, with a home camp in Antequera, Malaga, before playing their final games ahead of China 2024 on home sand at the ‘International Tournament of Spain 2024’ in Cadiz.

“This tournament is a very important part of the preparation,” said Morillo about the event where his side played Portugal and Slovakia multiple time. “Because, although we are training very well, we need to compete. We want to incorporate new game systems and we have to test them.”

Spain won all five of their games 2:0, two against Slovakia, and three against fellow China 2024 team, Portugal, the first 22:6, 11:10, second 16:10, 15:12, and a third, in the final 2-0 (17:12, 22:18).

"We had a good preparation, very positive in my opinion,” he added. “I believe that we reach our goals in this last two weeks, and now we want to reach higher in China. We'll face tough teams, so we'll need to reach our best level.”

In China, Spain will face Croatia, Argentina and Vietnam in the preliminary round.

“Germany is the best team in my opinion, and then there are a lot of teams with possibilities, Spain included. Vietnam are an unknown team, so we have to take precautions against them. We played twice against Croatia last summer, in the European Championship, and it'll be a difficult match for sure. Regarding Argentina, I know some of their players, they have a good team. It'll be our third match in China, so we'll have time to work on it there.”

Following the championship conclusion, the Spanish trio of Jimena Laguna, Encinas and Batista will all then be heading to Paris to be part of the IHF Beach Handball Showcase on the fringes of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

 

Coach: Juan Pablo Morillo

Key Players: Patricia Encinas, María Asunción Batista, Patricia Conejero

Qualification information: 2023 EHF Women’s European Beach Handball Championship – 3rd

History in Tournament: 2004-2006: DNQ, 2008: 2nd, 2010: 9th, 2012: DNQ, 2014: 5th, 2016: 1st, 2018: 4th, 2022: 2nd

Group at China 2024: Group B: Spain, Argentina, Vietnam, Croatia