Denmark’s Joachim Trend Hansen wrote his name into a part of beach handball history this morning when his two-point strike opened the scoring against the USA in their opening Group A game of the ANOC World Beach Games - Qatar 2019.

Just a few seconds after 9am, his goal became the first-ever points scored at an ANOC World Beach Games as his European champion side went on to win 2-0.

Eleven other men’s games were completed throughout the day in preliminary group A and B, with all teams playing two matches each and Denmark, alongside Sweden, Brazil, Spain and Qatar ending the day with two wins out of two.

Group A: World champions Brazil impress, Australia and USA put up a fight

2018 IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship title-holders Brazil started the day off at the Al-Gharafa Beach Handball Arena with a comfortable 2-0 win over Oman with pivot Gil Pires safely guiding his side through their first challenge, helping to put the South Americans 6-0 up early on and prompting a time out from Oman.

At the same time, Sweden were dispatching Australia 2-0 with room to spare, thanks to a large points haul from specialist Jesper Knutsson and right wing Martin Kack. The North American and The Caribbean (NAC) champions USA faced European champions Denmark in the third Group A match of the early session, but after Trend Hansen made that small piece of history, the Danes sailed through their first assignment 2-0, despite the best efforts of the USA’s top points-scorer Drew Donlin.

The group A evening session saw the Danes face a bigger test against Australia who led a number of times in the first period, but fell just short, despite finding themselves 20:18 ahead and Denmark taking a time out with 11 seconds of the first period left, the European side equalised (20:20) with four seconds left to take it to the golden goal, which Frederik Jensen took advantage almost immediately after the restart. A brief lead was held early in the second period by the Oceania side, but Danish pivot Simon Moss ensured his side took their second win of a successful day of business.

Brazil and Sweden also got their second wins, against USA and Oman respectively.

Group B: Host nation 100%, Spain effective

The opening match of group B saw great drama for the host side Qatar and their noisy supporters, as, eventually, they got their campaign off to a win, defeating Croatia in a shoot-out 9:6. Croatia had comfortably won the first period, but the Asian champions came back to squeeze a win in the second and take it to the nail-biting conclusion.

A number of saves from Qatar’s goalkeeper Rasheed Yusuff were the key, starting with a failed lob attempt from Croatia’s Josip Matezovic and when he saved from Matej Sosic, Qatar’s Mohamed Hassan took the one point shot to make it 7-4 with Croatia’s Ivan Juric unable to take the game to a second round.

The other two morning games in group B saw Hungary easily beat Tunisia 2-0 and Spain defeat Uruguay 2-0 a little more closely, with Gonzalo Perez de Vargas impressing for the European side.

In the evening session under the floodlights, Croatia got back to winning ways to hand Uruguay their second 2-0 defeat while youngster Domingo Jesus Luis Mosquera top-scored for Spain in their 2-0 defeat of Tunisia, inflicting the second defeat on the North Africans.

The final game of the opening day on the central court was a perfect example of beach handball’s excitement and drama as Qatar took their second victory in a row, and by shoot-out again, with Rasheed Yusuff inspiring. Hungary had won the first period and thought they could have had a chance to go to a golden goal in the second period with Qatar in attack, 16:14 up.

A time out taken with 17 seconds left on the clock saw the home side emerge onto court with a final attack to ensure a shoot-out, but a foul was called on Peter Hajdu after the had interfered in the attack and the subsequent six-metre was scored to ensure it would conclude nervously.

RESULTS

Men’s Competition: Friday 11 October

Group A: Brazil (BRA), Sweden (SWE), Denmark (DEN), Oman (OMA), United States of America (USA), Australia (AUS)

Group B: Croatia (CRO), Hungary (HUN), Spain (ESP), Qatar (QAT), Uruguay (URU), Tunisia (TUN)

Group A
BRA vs OMA 2-0 (20:12, 19:12)
SWE vs AUS 2-0 (22:11, 28:8)
DEN vs USA 2-0 (27:12, 19:14)
AUS vs DEN 0-2 (20:21, 16:23)
USA vs BRA 0-2 (17:22, 20:24)
OMA vs SWE 0-2 (14:16, 14:16)

Group B
CRO vs QAT 1-2 (21:16, 16:17, SO 6:9)
HUN vs TUN 2-0 (20:12, 18:12) 
ESP vs URU 2-0 (18:14, 20:17)
QAT vs HUN 2-1 (18:20, 18:14, SO 7:4)
URU vs CRO 0-2 (16:21, 16:18)
TUN vs ESP 0-2 (12:18, 12:14)6.3.1