Hungary come to the 2025 IHF Women’s Youth Beach Handball World Championship with one of the best histories in the competition, having won the debut edition, at Mauritius 2017 and finishing in fourth, last time out, at Greece 2022 after a shock shoot-out loss to the surprise package Poland.

Only the Dutch women can boast a better youth world championship record in either gender, having finished second both times.

Hungary’s debut gold saw them beat then European champions Netherlands via a shoot-out (7:4) to and they followed that up in 2021 by becoming European champions.

Fourth was also the position the Hungarians finished at the YAC 16 EURO last year in Bulgaria, a finish which saw them qualify for Tunisia 2025. 

On the sand in Varna, Hungary saw off Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania and Poland, but then lost to Germany in the preliminary round, to finish as runners-up, moving directly into the quarter-finals where they saw off Spain 2-1, but they could not overcome the Dutch in the semi-finals, losing 13:12 in the shoot-out to set up a bronze medal match against Croatia, which they lost 2-0.

Their preliminary group in Tunisia is arguably the easiest, with their three opponents all debutants in the competition – Tunisia, Mexico and Senegal.

Coach Judit Jonas is joined by the medal-laden former Hungary women’s national team goalkeeper Agnes Gyori who has a long history working with the younger age categories, including as an assistant coach when they won bronze at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires – again defeating Netherlands in a final – and at the last youth world championship three years ago.

Jonas, who cites the quote from Eva Szekely, an Olympic Games gold medallist in swimming for Hungary and Holocaust survivor: ‘Only the winner is allowed to cry’ as her favourite, has named eight new players her 18-women provisional squad for Tunisia, with Sara Gollner and Kitti Bozso the only two players from Bulgaria not recalled.

“We are heading into the world championship with a changed team,” explained Jonas to ihf.info, who is with her team at their final preparation camp before travelling to Tunisia. “Our goal is to achieve the best possible result and finish as high as possible in the rankings.”

“Our group does not seem bad, but the difficulty and the peculiarity of these youth tournaments is that there is not much information about the other teams apart from the European national teams,” she added, to mksz.hu.

“The most important thing is to get through the group in the best possible place, and from there everything depends on who we face to get into the top four.”

For Tamas Neukum, Beach Handball Technical Director and Head of the Beach Handball Subcommittee for the Hungarian Handball Federation, Tunisia 2025 is a crucial championship which deserves the full backing of the federation.

“The Hungarian Handball Federation treats the world championship and the beach handball youth teams as priority events for almost 20 years now,” he explained to ihf.info.

“We strongly support and help the preparation and performance of our young national teams and I am sure that our teams, players and leaders will represent Hungary and the very highly-rated Hungarian handball in a worthy way.

“I hope with all my heart that the young players will achieve their dreams, their goals and that I can see the happiness in their eyes and on their faces. Finally, I wish for them to enjoy every moment of this celebration, this wonderful event.”

Coach: Judit Jonas
Key players: Safely Csillag Szentirmai (Defensive specialist/Left Back), Dorka Kolonics (Right Wing)
Qualification information: YAC 16 EURO 2024 - 4th
History in tournament: 2017: 1st, 2022: 4th
Group at Tunisia 2025: Group C – Tunisia (TUN), Hungary (HUN), Mexico (MEX), Senegal (SEN)