Look Back: China 2024 – IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship
21 Jun. 2026
With the 2026 IHF Men’s World Championship throwing-off in Zagreb, Croatia next week, ihf.info takes a look at the last championship, held two years ago on Pingtan Island in the People’s Republic of China.
The event: The 11th edition of the Men’s IHF Beach Handball World Championship, featuring 16 teams, took place on Pingtan Island, China from 18 to 23 June 2024.
What was new: The 2024 IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship marked the 20-year anniversary of the first-ever IHF Beach Handball Championship, held in Egypt in 2004 and was also an opportunity for teams to qualify for The World Games 2025 Chengdu.
Two national teams made their debut at this level, with hosts China and African champions Tunisia stepping on to IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship sand for the first time.
Croatia and Brazil continued their streak of appearing at every single men’s world championship since it debuted back in 2004 in Egypt with China 2024 being their 10th, straight appearance.
The competition: 16 men’s teams were split into four preliminary groups of four teams each. After each team had played each other in their respective group, the top three in each group went through to two main round groups of six while the bottom team in each preliminary group dropped into a consolation round.
The top four teams in each main round group then went into the knockout stages, starting with the quarter-finals, then semi-finals and medal matches, while the teams who did not make it all the way played a variety of different consolation and placement round games.
Who won: Croatia won their fourth title, making it back-to-back gold medals after winning at Greece 2022. In both finals, they defeated Denmark.
Review: Asia was the destination for just the second time in world championship history, after Oman in 2012, as the ‘Pingtan International Beach Sports Base’ at the Long Wangtou Ocean Park on Pingtan Island in the People’s Republic of China hosted the best 16 men’s teams in the world.
After the event draw, Mladen Paradzik, coach of Croatia told ihf.info, “…we are aware of our own strength…if you are the defending champions, then all the other teams are ‘after you’ and even more motivated to beat you.”
Croatia beat Portugal 2-0 on the opening day of their title defence, with the two debutant teams also going head-to-head, Tunisia defeating China 7:6 via shoot-out. “We won today because we played as a group,” said Tunisia’s Archaf Margheli after the victory. “Playing China was very wonderful: the crowd, they love their team, but today we played like warriors.”
Croatia moved into the main round with further wins against Puerto Rico and Argentina joined by a number of heavyweights, including Spain, Germany, Hungary and Denmark amongst others.
After 24 games in the preliminary stage, the men’s main round opened by celebrating ‘International Beach Handball Day’ which recognises the origins of the sport and by the end of the opening day of the second phase, Brazil, Hungary, Germany and Croatia had already confirmed their quarter-final spots, with a perfect record of four wins from their four games at China 2024.
The conclusion of the main round action confirmed the remaining quarter-final spots with Tunisia, Qatar, USA and Oman losing out as Portugal, Spain, Denmark and Argentina progressed to the knockout stages – the first time the South American side had got that far.
Lucas Matias Coronel was Argentina’s hero as his second shoot-out winning strike of the day saw off a dogged USA side in their winner-takes-all final Main Round, Group II game.
In the biggest shock of the quarter-finals, Portugal, who only made their IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship at Greece 2022, defeated all-time record-holders Brazil to qualify through to the first semi-final, joined by fellow history-makers Germany who had only finished as high as eighth previously. Croatia beat European champions Hungary via shoot-out, while Argentina’s dream died, going down 2-0 (21:16, 18:17) against Denmark.
“It's amazing. We said our mantra from the beginning was our flag and we played with the shirts in the colours of Portugal. Red, which means courage. Green, which means hope and, in our hearts, we have joy to play this game and we took it to the field,” said Portugal’s Tomas Van-Zeller. “And, we got the win. We got it done.”
The semi-finals saw Joachim Trend Hansen help his Denmark side to a 2-0 (25:18, 21:20) win over neighbours Germany, while Portugal lost 2-0 (27:24, 22:14) to Croatia, who secured a fifth, consecutive final – after appearing in every one since 2014 (2014, 2016, 2018, 2022).
“Every time you are in a final it puts experience on top and we have played against Croatia many, many times,” said Hansen ahead of the final. “We lost last time, but the time before that we won. It's always very close games and so we have full confidence that we will be able to win even though we know it's going to be difficult.”
And, in match 72 of the men’s competition it would prove to be difficult for Denmark to win as Croatia turned on the style for gold, defeating them 2-1 (23:18, 18:23, SO 9:6) via shoot-out.
Immense pressure was palpable on both sides in the humid conditions but Lucian Bura calmed the nerves of the Croatians, opening up the scoring (2:0). Next up was Hansen for Denmark but he saw his shot saved.
This was the chance the Croatians craved and they did not look back, scoring their next four shots, ending with a single point from Ivan Dumencic to seal the title yet again for the Croatians.
The result continued a remarkable run of form which has seen them lose just two games from Hungary 2016 onwards out of 37, gaining three world titles (Hungary 2016 – 10 games/1 loss, Kazan 2018 – 9/1, Greece 9/0, China 9/0). At China 2024, they dropped just three sets (against the USA, Hungary and Denmark).
Portugal beat Germany for bronze, 2-0 (25:24, 20:18) in just their second-ever world championship, while Spain ended in fifth, the sixth time they had gained that finish.
Argentina, riding high on a wave, had already confirmed their highest-ever ranking in their 7/8 placement match against Hungary, which they lost, while debutants Tunisia and China ended their China 2024 campaign as they started – by playing each other. Tunisia winning again.
“The feeling (of winning) is great,” said Mladen Paradzik. “When we saw that we only lost one game in five or six years, we had an additional burden but these guys are amazing. We are noticing this, because when the teams play against us, we can feel that. Because all teams, they don't lose anything if they lose against us. We feel it because the guys are really tired. That's the reason why this title is even sweeter, even better.”
For 2024 IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship quotes, statistics, photos, match reviews and a whole lot more, visit the mini-site here.
2024 IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship – China
All-star Team/awards
MVP: Ivan Dumencic, Croatia
Top scorer: Santy Rodriguez, Uruguay – 155 points
Fair Play Award: Croatia
Best goalkeeper: Ricardo Castro, Portugal
Best left wing: Gonzalo Cervera, Spain
Best right wing: Lucian Bura, Croatia
Best specialist: Martin Vilstrup Andersen, Denmark
Best pivot: Simon Moss, Denmark
Best defender: Severin Henrich, Germany
Final Ranking
1 Croatia (CRO)
2 Denmark (DEN)
3 Portugal (POR)
4 Germany (GER)
5 Spain (ESP)
6 Brazil (BRA)
7 Hungary (HUN)
8 Argentina (ARG)
9 Uruguay (URU)
10 Qatar (QAT)
11 Tunisia (TUN)
12 People’s Republic of China (CHN)
13 United States of America (USA)
14 Australia (AUS)
15 Oman (OMA)
16 Puerto Rico (PUR)
What happened next: The remainder of 2024 saw a variety of club, national and regional competitions for the players, with the following year featuring continental competitions and The World Games 2025 which was held in Chengdu, People’s Republic of China from 7 to 12 August 2025.