The penultimate day of the handball tournament at the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing started with the first leg of the placement matches in both competitions. The Angolan girls and the Brazilian boys finished victorious in style – and will face their competitors again on Monday 25 August to finally decide the positions 5 and 6.

Placement matches 5/6:

Girls’ tournament:

Angola – China 31:18 (14:6)

After two clear defeats in the preliminary round, Angola showed their second face and left host China behind without any chance.  Conceding only six goals before the break was the key to the clear victory. Goalkeeper Swelly Simao again showed a brilliant performance, saving an overall of 15 shots. China did not start that bad and were on eye level until the 5:5 in minute 11, but then only scored once in the rest of the first half – so the African champions had pre-decided the encounter at the break.

After only 12 minutes of the second half the margin was double-figured for the first time at 21:11, and led by top scorer Manuela Paulino (eight goals) Angola had an easy-going morning session – and China needs a miracle in the second leg on Monday to turn the tide after this 13 goals backlog.

Boys’ tournament:

Brazil – Tunisia 38:31 (23:15)

Brazil had missed the semi-finals highly close due to a tight defeat against Norway, now the South Americans proved again that they are well-deserved participants of the Youth Olympic Games. For another time tournament top scorer Patrick Toniazzo Lemos was the tower of power for Brazil, again scoring double-figured (ten goals). On the other hand, Mohammed Memmich (8) and Annouar Ben Abdallah (7) nearly stroke half of the Tunisian goals.

After a 0:2 at the start, Brazil were in lead constantly throughout the whole 60 minutes, in which both sides mainly focused on attack and not defence, proved by in total 69 goals. The 11:7 was the first four goal lead for the Pan-American champions, who then pre-decided the match already with five straight goals to 19:11 in minute 22, keeping this distance until the break.

Tunisia improved in the second half, which they even “won”, but never could endanger Brazil – and now need to win the re-match on Monday by at least eight goals to finish on the fifth position.