Look Back: China 2024 – IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship
20 Jun. 2026
With the 2026 IHF Women’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 Women’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 Women’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 Philippines and Puerto Rico stepping on to IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship sand for the first time, while Croatia replaced African champions Tunisia ahead of the event.
Brazil continued their streak of appearing at every single women’s world championship since it debuted back in 2004 in Egypt with China 2024 being their 10th, straight appearance.
The competition: 16 women’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: Germany continued an incredible winning run, winning back-to-back world titles by defeating the impressive Argentina in the final.
Review: 16 teams from five continents played 72 games at China 2024 with defending champions’ coach Alexander Novakovic, saying ahead of the tournament: “We're looking forward to it. We have a lot of self-confidence but respect all the strong teams we will face.”
And they faced one in their very first game with a clash between the two previous two IHF Women’s Beach Handball Championship gold medallists – Germany as reigning title-holders and Russia 2018 champions, Greece.
And after winning all nine of their games 2-0 on their way to gold at the 2022 IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship in Greece, Germany made it 10 games without conceding a world championship set, defeating their opponents 2-0 (24:14, 22:20).
Yadielis Johan Barros Feliciano made some more Puerto Rican handball history, scoring the first-ever points at an IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship for her country in a tough loss against Brazil.
Fellow debutants Philippines, nearly pulled off one of the greatest shocks in world championship history as they won their first set against Portugal via golden goal (19:18). The European Championship fourth-placed side stormed back in the second set (22:10) to take it to shots, won by Portugal, 6:5 after Aurora Adriano was adjudged to have made a one-point shot (to make it 5:4).
“Coming here, maybe no-one gave us a chance but we got the first set and we just missed the shoot-out by one point,” said Philippines head coach Jana Franquelli. “I hope it showed everybody that we belong here and I'm just so proud of the effort of the girls.”
But Franquelli and her Philippines side did not have to wait long to create history, as they defeated hosts China 2-0 (13:11, 13:10) on the second day of preliminary group action. “The heart of the Filipino cannot be defeated easily,” added Philippines defender Gretchie Roque.
A number of main round tickets were confirmed in the morning session of day two, including Portugal, Denmark – with Line Gyldenlove Kristensen playing her final world championship – Spain, Brazil, Argentina and Germany, who extended their winning IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship run to 11 games in the early session.
The afternoon/evening session saw the Germans finally lose a world championship match, this time against Brazil. Netherlands, Croatia, Philippines, Norway, Greece and China completed the main round line-up.
The first session of main round matches saw Argentina, Brazil, Portugal and Denmark confirm their last eight places, while the Netherlands played Germany in a repeat of the 2023 European Championship final, the game in China won by the Germans 5-4 via shoot-out.
“That was just a showcase of what we can do and what we're able to when we just believe in us and believe in the ability and the capacity that every player for us has,” said Germany’s Lucie Marie Kretzschmar after the game, who had extra emotion on the sand after assistant coach, Hendrik Sander, had to return to Germany for personal reasons.
Germany, Spain, Croatia and Netherlands claimed the final women’s quarter-final places after 2018 world champions Greece failed at the last hurdle to make it through.
The last eight saw 2018 Youth Olympic Games gold medal-winning coach Leticia Brunati and her Argentina side come of age on the biggest stage as they beat their perennial rivals and neighbours Brazil in their continental clash for a place in the last four, via a 13:12 shoot-out win (2-1, 18:19, 26:18, SO 13:12). “Everybody is very, very excited and very happy for us,” said Brunati. “We work a lot for these results.”
Germany dispatched Spain 2-1 (12:17, 19:18, SO 12:10), Netherlands grabbed a victory over Portugal, 2-0 (28:18, 24:20) and Denmark beat Croatia 2-0 (27:22, 22:18) to complete the semi-final line-up.
And in the last four – having finished no higher than seventh in their previous world championship appearances – Argentina guaranteed themselves a medal after defeating the Netherlands 2-1 (14:19, 27:20, SO 8:6) in their semi-final. “We came here to win nine matches, so that's what we're going to do,” said Argentina’s Gisella Bonomi. Title-holders Germany hung on in a tight game to defeat Denmark 2-1 (25:22, 20:21, SO 9:8).
But a final win for the South American side was out of their hands as the title-holders made it back-to-back gold medals, Germany defeating Argentina 2-0 (24:16, 21:18).
The South Americans had led the first set early on (6:4, 3rd minute), but Germany powered back, scoring eight unanswered points (12:6, 6th minute) as Argentina saw their shots either saved by Nele Kurzke in the German goal or make technical faults.
The German lead was 10 with seconds remaining (24:14) as Argentina looked towards the second set with hope and it was a much tighter affair. In the closing seconds, Germany were 20:18 ahead, with Lucila Balsas in position for Argentina, but 34-year-old Kurzke pulled off a strong save, immediately followed by a German time out and it appeared the game was over.
A single pointer from 16-year-old Dilayla Alarslan then put the Germans out of reach at 21:18 and the game was over, further emphasised by a diving Carolin Hübner block as the South American side desperately tried to close the gap.
“It’s unbelievable,” said Hübner about winning the title. “What we did in defence is unbelievable; incredible running and our plan worked out exactly. We put the Argentinians in the situations we wanted, and then we got a lot out of the block at the end.”
The Netherlands took bronze against Denmark, 2-0 (19:18, 22:20), their second world championship third place in a row and despite the disappointment, Denmark recorded their best world championship ranking since 2012, when they finished second.
Debutants Puerto Rico ended China 2024 with their first win – defeating the USA 2-0 (15:12, 19:16) to finish 15th, thanks to 14 points from Yadelis Johan Barros Feliciano.
“They were brilliant,” said Germany coach Alexander Novakovic about his Argentina opponents. “Coach Leticia Brunati is my friend. She was in Germany, we had breakfast together, we talked about Beach Handball, about tactics. I respect her a lot because the work what she did over the last years in Argentina is the same I did in Germany. I know the hard work involved in that and I'm really happy about having more finals against this brilliant team in the future.”
For 2024 IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship quotes, statistics, photos, match reviews and a whole lot more, visit the mini-site here.
2024 IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship – China
All-star Team/awards
MVP: Line Larsen, Denmark
Top scorer: Beatriz Cruz, Brazil – 170 points
Fair Play Award: Spain
Best goalkeeper: Patricia Encinas Guardado, Spain
Best left wing: Fiorella Corimberto, Argentina
Best right wing: Meike Kruijer, Netherlands
Best specialist: Lucila Candela Balsas, Argentina
Best pivot: Isabel Kattner, Germany
Best defender: Lucie-Marie Kretzschmar, Germany
Final Ranking
1 Germany (GER)
2 Argentina (ARG)
3 Netherlands (NED)
4 Denmark (DEN)
5 Spain (ESP)
6 Portugal (POR)
7 Croatia (CRO)
8 Brazil (BRA)
9 Vietnam (VIE)
10 Greece (GRE)
11 Norway (NOR)
12 Philippines (PHI)
13 Australia (AUS)
14 People’s Republic of China (CHN)
15 Puerto Rico (PUR)
16 United States of America (USA)
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.