The 10th edition of the IHF Women’s Youth World Championship will throw off on 14 August, in Chuzhou, the People’s Republic of China, with 32 teams at the start. This is the first edition of the competition played outside of Europe since 2010, when it was hosted by the Dominican Republic.

When? 14-25 August 2024.

Where? Chuzhou, People’s Republic of China. Three arenas are ready to host the competition – the Chuzhou International Handball Hall (a capacity of 7,000 seats), the Chuzhou Olympic Sports Center (6,488 seats) and the Chuzhou vocational and technical college stadium (3,600 seats)

Number of teams: 32 (17 from Europe, 6 from Asia, 4 from Africa, 3 from the South and Central American Handball Confederation, 2 from the North America and Caribbean Confederation).

Format: 8 groups of four teams each. Best two teams progress to the main round, where four groups of four teams are created. The best two teams in each main round group make it to the knockout phase. All teams play on the first day of the competition, with two days of eight matches each, then another 16-match card on the fourth day, in the preliminary round.

Favourites: Always difficult to gauge the potential of the teams. In the last edition of the IHF Women’s Youth World Championship, the Republic of Korea secured their maiden title and the first-ever title for a non-European team. But this time around, the current generation did not win the 2023 AHF Asian Women’s Youth Championship, which went to Japan. France, Denmark and Germany were on the podium of the W17 EHF EURO 2023, but count Hungary out at your own peril. Egypt, which dominated the 2023 CAHB African Women's Youth Handball Championship, could also be a dark horse, but they face a tough group with Switzerland, Spain and Romania.

Debutants: The Chinese Taipei, Greenland, Kosovo and Nigeria. Four teams are making their debut, from three different continents, as the expansion of the competition to 32 teams has provided new chances of development for this teams. Canada are also returning for the first time since 2006, while Serbia are returning for the first time since 2008, when they won the silver medal.

Previous winners: Russia (2008, 2016, 2018) and Denmark (2006, 2012) are the only sides which have won the title multiple times. Sweden (2010), Romania (2014) and the Republic of Korea (2022) have only won it once.

*All the throw off hours in the schedule are CST (China Standard Time - CEST +6 hours).