2024 has been a year where handball has dominated the headlines in France. Sure, the big focus was on the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where the France women’s senior national team finished on the second place, conceding a loss in the final against Norway, while the men’s side crashed out against Germany in the quarter-finals.

However, over 300,000 spectators flocked to the South Paris Arena 6 and to the Stade Pierre Mauroy to see their favourites on French soil during the Olympics. Yet handball did not stop at that for France in the last months.

The Paris 2024 Olympic Games saw the IHF Beach Handball Showcase, a collaborative effort between the IHF, Paris 2024 Organising Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games (COJOP2024), French Handball Federation (FFHB) and International Olympic Committee (IOC), being played on the outskirts of the Olympics.

All this while the France women’s junior national team delivered their maiden title at the IHF Women’s Junior World Championship, in North Macedonia, with a fantastic display, which underlined the penchant for development.

Now, another milestone will be set for French handball, as the France wheelchair national team will make its debut at the IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship, being in the eight team line-up for Egypt 2024.

“We have been striving to become better and better and this is really important for us, to be here, to compete and to try to win matches in the World Championship. We usually have been playing six-a-side, now we adapted to the four-a-side wheelchair handball, but I really think we are ready for the competition,” said France’s coach, Fabien Convers, to ihf.info.

Two years ago, when the first edition of the IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship took place in Egypt, members of the wheelchair handball department of the French Handball Federation were in attendance, taking notes and trying to see what exactly makes a team tick.

Now, France are getting their own chance to fight for silverware, as they have been slowly developing in the past 20 years, putting the knowhow, as well as the lessons learnt two years ago, at Egypt 2022, to good use.

“Indeed, we had people scouting whatever was happening, seeing the matches, observing the teams, seeing how everything fell into place. We worked a lot in the past years and here we are, ready to make our debut, which is a fantastic achievement,” added Convers.

At the 3rd IHF Wheelchair Handball World Championship, France will play in Group B, alongside Brazil, Japan and the United States of America, the reigning champions and two debutants, which makes it tough to determine exactly where the European side stands.

“We don't know very much about the other teams in our preliminary group as we have never played games against any of them. But our objective is to make the semi-finals, which means to finish as good as possible in our group and improve our chances for a better placement at the end of the competition,” says France’s coach.

But how did France exactly create a wheelchair handball team which can enable them to hope for a medal in just such a short amount of time?

According to the data, France have 60 teams and 500 athletes who are currently playing wheelchair handball. The development has been accelerated over the last years, as the sport has been offered as a leisure activity before that.

A competition – EURO Hand 4 All – which saw four teams take part in 2021 and six teams in both the last two editions – 2022 and 2023 – also helped, with France finishing as runners-up in 2022 and bronze medallists in 2023 and 2024.

“We have been trying to improve our pool of players and we did that. However, it is always a challenge, because they are amateurs, they still have jobs, but many of them give everything they can to this sport, because they love it. We have really developed over the last years,” said Convers.

“⁠Our players are ready to the tournament. We trained a lot together as a team and each player had a preparation schedule prepared by the staff to work on their weakness and on our strategies to be ready.”

Whether France are ready or not for the big step, it is still to be seen. However, making their debut on the biggest of stages is a huge achievement in itself, one which can set the tone for the future and enable another handball discipline to thrive in France, a country which lives and breathes the sport.

Credit photo: SashaCapture69 / EURO Hand 4 All