France captain Alexis Gilme is living his dream in Zagreb, leading his team on their debut IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship experience and guiding them through to the second stage already.

And where he finds himself now is a result of a decision made some time ago, giving up an indoor career to switch to beach while going out to study – first completing a degree in Sports Science (STAPS) in Granada, Spain, then a Masters in Sports Management in France – before moving to a job with the big French sporting goods company Decathlon where he is now an operations manager of a Decathlon City store in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, a role which allows him to work but also take time off for his international career.

“I realised I was not the Karabatic of France in indoor handball,” says Gilme to ihf.info about making the decision to pursuing education and a working career. “So I took the option of going to school to study and then work because it was difficult for me in the indoor game, now I work for Decathlon and am focused on playing beach handball.

“I just love the ambiance of beach handball; the feeling with the sand, the tactical type of plays and the little bit ‘crazy’ spinshots and shoot-outs. I love this game, this type of competition.”

While Gilme still sometimes plays the indoor discipline in the sixth division of the Paris neighbourhood league “for fun”, his story is now a sandy one after he was scouted while playing indoor handball for Handball Pôle Espoir in Dunkerque and was also part of first division side USDK’s youth academy.

In 2018 he made his debut as part of the France team who played at the Men’s 18 Beach EURO in Ulcinj, Montenegro, making his senior EURO debut at the 2019 Men’s EHF EURO in Poland the following year.

But disaster struck last year ahead of the 2025 EHF EURO when he ruptured his ACL in his knee just two months before the event in Turkiye.

Deciding not to get surgery, Gilme worked hard on his rehabilitation to help his team smash their previous continental ranking of 13th, to finish in fifth place and book a spot at their debut world championship.

On the sand in Alanya, France impressed with wins over Spain (2-1), Hungary (2-1) and Norway (2-0) before losing via shoot-out to Croatia in the quarter-finals. However, their fighting spirit shone through and they won their remaining two games, including an epic 17:16 shoot-out win over Portugal in the 5/6 placement match (2-1, 14:21, 15:14, SO 17:16).

Immediately after the event, Gilme got surgery so he could be ready for Croatia 2026, where they faced Australia, Oman and host nation Croatia in their preliminary group.

Wins against Australia (2-0, 24:14, 23:19) and Oman (2-0, 20:18, 23:18) were enough to qualify through to the next stage at their first attempt, despite a loss against Croatia (0-2, 20:22, 23:29) in their final group game.

“It was very important for us to play against Croatia in Croatia after the game at the EURO last year, but we didn’t have the game we wanted as we lost balls in attack and in defence, we did not show what we could do, but we'll be better in the other games,” explained Gilme.

“But it's our first World Championship and for France, it's crazy to play this. Yes, we have a good team, but it's the first. It’s been just 10 years since we know beach handball in France, and we are working a lot to get into this type of competition. It’s different to a EURO because a world championship has other cultures and it's not the same games. Against Australia and Oman, these games were very different.”

France are the second youngest average age men’s squad at Croatia 2026, behind Argentina and as captain, Gilme is working hard to guide his young side through it.

“We have a very young team, but with my experience – because I’ve been in the team for eight or nine years – I have to help for the mentality, in the games, playing good and helping the young generation. We are staying humble and looking to progress not only here, but in the future EURO too,” he said.

“It's so crazy because we are in the biggest competition in the world of beach handball, but we're focusing on the competition, and we want to play to win. We have two points in the main round and we're going to play Germany, Brazil and Argentina – and it will be our first time against both Brazil and Argentina – we are excited to play against the big teams.”

So, when Gilme and his France side are on the plane home next week, what memories does the 26-year-old captain want to be taking with him?

“I hope it will be possible to say that we have won against one of the bigger teams in this competition, but I don't know,” he said. “Now, after the preliminary round, it's very difficult to think.”