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Teams to learn their fate at the draw for the 2022 IHF Junior Women’s World Championship

08 Apr. 2022

Teams to learn their fate at the draw for the 2022 IHF Junior Women’s World Championship

After the 2020 IHF Junior Women’s World Championship, which was due to be played in Romania, was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 23rd edition of the competition will take place in Slovenia, between 22 June and 3 July.

This will be the first-ever edition of the competition which features 32 teams, with 17 teams coming from Europe, four each from Africa and Asia, four from the South and Central American Confederation and two from the North America and Caribbean Handball Confederation.

As the IHF Trophy tournaments were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the IHF will also award a Wild Card to complete the 32-team line-up at Slovenia 2022.

The draw will take place at Hotel Evropa in Celje on Wednesday 13 April, at 17:00 CEST, a  historical city for handball, where matches will take place in the Golovec and Zlatorog Arenas, with the latter being the home of RK Celje Pivovarna Laško, the most decorated team in Slovenian history. Matches will also be played in Laško and Velenje, with four venues dedicated for the competition.

The 32 teams which will take part in the competition have been divided into four pots of eight teams each.

The draw will start with the teams in pot 4, followed by the teams which were allocated into pot 3. The teams in pot 1 will be drawn in the eight groups afterwards, while hosts Slovenia, who were allocated to pot 2, have the prerogative to assign a group of their choice.

Finally, the other seven teams from pot 2 will be drawn into their groups, as the ceremony will end.

The reigning champions, Hungary, who secured the gold medal at Hungary 2018, are in pot 1, while the finalists from four years ago, Norway, are in pot 2.

Denmark and Romania, each with two gold medals the most decorated teams in the history of the competition which will play at Slovenia 2022, will also be part of pot 1.

Guinea, India and the Islamic Republic of Iran will make their debut at the IHF Women’s Junior World Championship, while the United States of America make their comeback for the first time since 1981.

2022 IHF Women’s Junior (U20) World Championship draw 

POT 1: Hungary, France, India, Sweden, Romania, Denmark, Croatia, Germany

POT 2: Norway, Czech Republic, Argentina, Switzerland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Islamic Republic of Iran, Poland

POT 3: Netherlands, Montenegro, Angola, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Chile, Egypt, Tunisia

POT 4: Republic of Korea, Japan, Paraguay, Guinea, Mexico, United States of America, Austria, Wild Card team