Thailand’s men enter their 2025 IHF Men’s Youth Beach Handball World Championship preliminary group as the most experienced nation.

Alongside Mexico, Cook Islands and host nation Tunisia, they are the only nation in the quartet to have played in a qualification tournament for Tunisia 2025 and solitary one to have appeared in a previous edition of the youth world championship.

Their qualification, on home sand in Bangkok last October, was impressive – a silver medal at the third edition of the Asian Handball Federation (AHF) Men’s Asian Youth Beach Handball Championship.

In the round-robin event, Thailand won four of their six games, against Indonesia 2-0 (26:12, 23:8), fellow Tunisia 2025 side Oman 2-1 (15:16, 24:23, SO 9:8), Qatar 2-1 (19:18, 8:14, SO 10:8) and Jordan 2-1 (15:14, 12:14, SO 7:6), but lost to eventual champions Iran 2-0 (24:16, 28:18) as well as China 2-1 (12:13, 25:22, SO 7:4).

Coach Surakhom Kannarong has named a provisional squad of 12 for Tunisia, featuring nine of the 10 players who were in the qualification squad late last year and they will be hoping to at least equal their eighth place gained at their sole appearance at the world championships, back in 2017.

“We will examine every game, but, as everyone knows, beach handball is unpredictable, entertaining and challenging. I don't want to put too much pressure on ourselves by setting too many goals, but we are going to give it our all with any side that comes to play against us,” explained Thailand assistant coach Open Kannarong, son of head coach Surakhom Kannarong, who represented his country at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires where they finished sixth, to ihf.info.

“Our main goal to enjoy the competition while meeting new friends. International events increase the popularity of beach handball among Thailand's uninitiated population, consequently expanding the country's beach handball community. This event could serve as the foundation for more chances for our youth and our handball Thailand community.”

Eight years ago Venezuela were dispatched 2-1 in Thailand’s opening preliminary group game of Mauritius 2017, followed by Togo (2-0). Their final game in the group saw them lost 2-0 to Russia, with the Europeans, South Americans and Thailand all qualifying through to the main round with four points each.

Chinese Taipei, Mauritius and Pakistan were all beaten 2-0 in the main round, with the Thai’s going through to the quarter-finals on maximum points at the top of the group again. But the quarter-finals were a step too fat, with Argentina seeing off their threat via shoot-out. Thailand then lost both of their 5-8 placement round games – against Chinese Taipei and Portugal – to finish eighth.

Coach: Surakhom Kannarong
Key player: Khawampati Kobmoo (Specialist)
Qualification information: 2024 AHF Asian Men’s Beach Handball Championships – 2nd
History in tournament: 2017: 8th, 2022: DNQ
Group at Tunisia 2025: Group C – Tunisia (TUN), Thailand (THA), Mexico (MEX), Cook Islands (COK)