While their place at China 2024 may have come as a result of African champions Tunisia not being able to attend, Croatia will grasp the opportunity to appear at their first IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship since 2012 with both hands.

The former world champions (2008) last appeared at the global event in 2012, in Oman, where they finished fifth, with a team featuring Kristina Smiljanic, Josipa Grebenar and Melita Jug amongst other players.

Fast-forward to 2024 and Grebenar is coach, assisted by Jug, with the incredible Smiljanic returning to world championship sand on court once again where her and her teammates will face Spain, Argentina and Vietnam.

“We are very excited and still in disbelief that we will be participating in at the coming IHF World Championship after a 12-year absence. As soon as we heard the news, we started preparations,” said Kristina Smiljanić to ihf.info.

“Although we qualified for the 2020 world championship in Italy, it was not held due to covid, which prevented us from finally ensuring continuity in major competitions and maintaining our form. 

“There are many unknown teams for us at China 2024 and this will surely bring a completely different dimension. We look forward to playing with everyone and hope to show our best performance to prove that our participation is not a coincidence.

“In our group, the only team we are familiar with is Spain, against whom we had the opportunity to play twice at the European Championship last year, while Argentina and Vietnam are unknown to us. 

“It will be very interesting to see how all the different styles of Beach Handball will match up in the games. I would say that our group is the most fiery and passionate in terms of temperament, and when that is the case, everything is open and possible.”

Most recently, Croatia finished in eight sport at the 2023 EHF Women’s European Beach Handball Championship, held in Portugal. This ranking would see them gain that unexpected ticket through to China 2024.

On the Nazare beach in Portugal they won two of their three preliminary group games, against Poland (2-0) and Romania (2-1), but lost to China 2024 opponents Spain 1-2 (18:25, 21:16, SO 4:7) despite a dominate second set.

In the main round they beat the host nation 2-0 in the main round which enough to move into the quarter-finals despite 0-2 losses against Norway and eventual champions Germany. Again, they met Spain, but this time the 2016 world champions were too strong, seeing them off 0-2 (17:25, 20:21).

Moving into the 5-8 placement round, they lost 0-2 to 2018 world champions Greece and ANOC World Beach Games champions Denmark 0-2 in the 7/8 placement match but had something to cheer with the deadly Anja Vida Luksic finishing overall fifth in the top-scorer charts, on 116 points (average 12.89 points per match).

This is a far cry from a golden period for the Croatian team which saw them medal five times at the continental level over a seven-year period: 2004 (2nd), 2006 (3rd), 2007 (1st), 2009 (3rd), 2011 (1st) – the 2011 gold won on home sand in Umag with a team featuring both Grebenar and Jug.

This had followed that 2008 IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship gold, won with a 2-0 win over Spain on their own home sand, in Cadiz.

Luksic, alongside Lena Dunderovic are the only two remaining players from the last IHF event the Croatian women featured in – Stage 1 of the 2022 IHF Beach Handball Global Tour in Plock. In Poland, Croatia lost (1-2) and beat (2-0) Poland, lost to Spain (0-2) and saw off a much-changed Germany (from their Greece 2022 world championship-winning team) 2-1.

With a strong Beach Handball culture in Croatia and through their various club teams who appear regularly on the European Beach Team (ebt), the whole nation will be watching what happens in China, and Grebenar cannot wait.

“China 2024 is an ideal opportunity for us to return to the circle of the best teams in women's Beach Handball after an absence from world championship for 12 years,” said former right wing Grebenar.

“The core of the team from last year's European Championship remains the same, so we are going to China with the goal of achieving the best possible result. Although some teams are less familiar to us, we know that they are quality teams, but we will give our best to justify this invitation with good matches and victories.”

Coach: Josipa Grebenar

Key Players: Kristina Smiljanic, Mirna Vuckovic, Anja Vida Luksic

Qualification information: Substitute team as the first reserve team from the continent of the World Champions (Germany), replacing African champions Tunisia

History in Tournament: 2004: 4th, 2006: 6th, 2008: 1st, 2010: 6th, 2012: 5th, 2014-2022: DNQ

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