As 2024 enters its third month, those involved in the European Beach Handball scene are well underway with their preparations for what is set to be another benchmark year.

IHF.info takes a look at some of the recent news across the sport in Europe, governed by the European Handball Federation (EHF).

Dates set for EHF Youth EURO, EURO 2025 qualification

The place to be in July for Beach Handball fans in Europe is Varna as the Bulgarian city gets ready to host four continental events.

From 4 to 7 July the EHF Men’s and Women’s Youth (U16) Beach Handball European Championships will be held, with places for the 2025 IHF Men’s and Women’s Youth (U17) Beach Handball World Championships up for grabs.

After a pause to reset and reenergise, the organisers will then welcome the senior sides to the same venue from 11 to 14 July as they play out the 2024 EHF Men’s and Women’s Beach Handball Championships – the qualification tournament for the 2025 EHF Men’s and Women’s Beach Handball European Championships (EURO 2025).

Eurohandball.com will reveal which teams will be appearing at the qualification event in the upcoming weeks.

The European nations already qualified through to the 2024 IHF Men’s and Women’s Beach Handball World Championships have already qualified for the EURO 2025, with Denmark, Germany, Portugal and Spain’s men’s and women’s sides booking their tickets to China, alongside the women’s sides of Netherlands, Norway and Greece, in addition to Croatia and Hungary in the men’s competition.

EHF Beach Tour finals dates, new website announced

The EHF’s elite continental tour series – the ‘European Beach Tour’ (ebt) – has confirmed its finals events will take place from 13 to 16 June in Lacanau, France.

A total of 28 teams – 14 men’s and 14 women’s – will battle it out for the prestigious title, with the 2023 women’s winners, the ‘Danish Beachhandball Dream’, returning, one of 13 different countries in the women’s event, with the men featuring teams from 11 different countries, but not including 2023 champions Hír-Sat BHC from Hungary.

This season of the ebt is the 20th anniversary edition of the tour after its debut in 2003/04. That first season saw 41 tournaments in 14 countries featuring 54 men's and 32 women's teams.

Last season, the ebt featured 196 teams, playing in 57 tournaments across 18 countries, with 113 men's and 83 women's teams battling it out. Both Sweden and the United Kingdom hosted an ebt event for the first time.

With the launch of the new ebt season, the EHF has also launched a new, dedicated website, which can be found at beach.eurohandball.com/ebt and contains key information on all aspects of the tour, including the all-important rankings.

Become an EHF Beach Handball referee or delegate

All EHF member federations are currently welcoming registrations for those interested in becoming EHF Beach Handball referees or delegates.

The ‘16th Delegates and 17th Referees Beach Handball Courses’ will run in Lacanau, France from 9 to 17 June, alongside the ebt Finals.

Applications are open now up until 29 March with further information available by emailing [email protected].

Switzerland starting with youth, aiming as high as their famous mountains

For the upcoming EHF Men’s and Women’s Youth (U16) Beach Handball European Championships, the Swiss Handball Association (SHV) have held training camps with their two new youth representative sides.

At the end of last year, former Swiss Beach Handball champion Michael Werren became coach of the U16 men’s national side, holding the first training camp for the 2008/2009/2010 generation in late January.

“We want interested young people to grow into a unified, close-knit group that is enthusiastic about beach handball so that we can make a difference on an international level,” he said to the SHV website, before adding this his long-term goal for the team is to qualify for the 2026 Youth Olympic Games in Dakar.

The men were also joined by the women’s U16 generation – coached by Daniel Schettler – after they had completed a successful camp in Basel in December.

In addition, the SHV announced an investment in Beach Handball with a statement explaining that, “…the central board as a strategic body approved the necessary financial resources of around 100,000 Swiss Francs (CHF) per year and the corresponding operational orientation in order to make Beach Handball better known and more competitive at all age and ability levels”.

The three-year project includes the sustainable development of beach handball junior national teams, the creation of new tournament offers for junior teams and the acquisition of new licensees via the entry-level form of mini beach handball.

German men working hard to reach heights of their women’s side

Following the news that the all-conquering German women’s national coach Aleksander Novakovic has signed an extension to his contract, the German Handball Association (DHB) is working to improve the level of their men’s side.

In early January, 18 players participated in a camp under men’s coach Marten Franke in the town of Witten as the European runners-up prepare for their first IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship appearance since 2006.

“We want to consolidate the attack that we recently developed,” said Franke to the DHB website. “We want to continue working on expanding our variability, finding ourselves in different formations and building a better understanding of each other.”

France widening their net of talented youth

Another nation preparing ahead of the U16 European Championship this July are France, with a debut camp for their U16 men’s (coached by Florian Dessertenne) and women’s teams at CREPS (Centre de Ressources d’Expertise et de Performance Sportive), Châtenay-Malabry, Ile de France.

A total of 24 players from each gender were selected for the camp which started in last February and will last for 15 days going into March.

“We will learn to work together, define our own operation and build solid foundations for the future,” said new women’s U16 coach Romain Capelle to ffhandball.net.

“We have identified indoor players with very interesting physical qualities for Beach Handball. We leave ourselves the possibility of opening the following courses to players who have passed through this first detection as we do not want to close any door.”

Joining the youth teams at CREPS was the women’s national team, led by Marion Limal. They are currently undertaking eight sessions on sand as well as various video analysis sessions. The camp will close with an indoor session to help achieve a smoother transition when they return back to their club sides.

Further preparation courses for the women will take place from 2 to 7 April in Dortmund, Germany and 18 – 23 June in Châteauroux, France ahead of that European qualification event in Bulgaria in July.

Danish beach tour announced, national teams prepare

May and June will see seven venues across Denmark host stages of their ‘Beach Handball Tour 2024’.

The tour features the debut of the town of Holstebro – well known for its men’s and women’s Team Tvis Holstebro sides – and consists of six qualifying events and one final event, plus a youth event.

“We are delighted to bring the Beach Handball Tour to West Jutland and look forward to showing that West Jutland is also ready to be part of the promotion of this fantastic sport,” said Denmark national team player and board member of NSK Handball in Holstebro to danskhaandbold.dk.

The schedule is:

• Qualifying events
   
• Sunday 19 May             Amager Strandpark
• Sunday 26 May             Glesborg
• Saturday 1 June            Vallensbæk
• Sunday 2 June              Kerteminde
• Sunday 9 June              Holstebro
• Sunday 16 June            Billund
   
• Finals
   
• Saturday 15 June          Kerteminde (youth)
• Saturday 29 June          Randers (senior)

Denmark men’s national team coach Gorm Andersen has selected a squad of 10 for a training and friendly match camp in Tunisia from 10 to 13 March where the Danes will play against the host nation and France.

“We usually start the season with a few training sessions, where the players meet each other in internal matches,” explained Andersen about the camp. “But now, we want to start with more important international matches early in the season to see if it can make us even sharper on the things we want to bring to the IHF World Championship in June.”

The women’s team have been in training, holding their first training camp of 2024, in the indoor beach dome in Aarhus.

In 2023, there were over 2400 team entries for beach handball events across Denmark, with over 250 other events for all handball players from U7 to senior level available to register for now.

Baia Mare the location for Romania younger age teams

Having hosted the ebt previously, Baia Mare welcomed the Romania younger age women’s national side to town last month for centralised training. The squad will return for further sessions in April, with the younger age men’s side training in the northern town later this month (15 to 17 March).

Both sides are currently preparing for the U16 European Championship later this year, with further preparation and training camps being held throughout the year at various locations, including Plopeni.

Further dates on the agenda include a bilateral game weekend (5 to 8 April) and the Carpathian Trophy (21 to 24 June).

Preparing for China in the Netherlands

After claiming bronze at Greece 2022, the Dutch women are busy preparing for the 2024 IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship as they look to step up on the podium.

A squad of 18 selected by head coach Peter Portengen will take part in a preparation camp at the HV Huissen sports complex this month and next. Included in the group are Greece 2022 All-star Team defender Rianne Mol and 2022 IHF Women’s Youth Beach Handball World Championship MVP, best left wing and top scorer, Eva Heuten.

The Netherlands Handball Association have also confirmed that their Beach Handball Tour Finals will be played at HV Jahn II in Stadskanaal from 6 to 7 July.

Norway national teams meet

The Norway men’s team will be holding their own training and friendly match camp in Malaga, Spain, from 12 to 17 March. They will face local club sides Malaga and Maravillas and will be led by head coach Anders Pettersen.

Bergen was the destination for the women’s side for their training camp as coach Eskil Berg Andreassen selected a squad of 20 for the four-day (28 February to 3 March) camp in the Norwegian city.

The Norwegian Handball Federation is also encouraging interested parties to register for their ‘Region East’ Beach Handball development programme aimed at youth categories all the way up to senior. Anyone interested should email: [email protected].