Quite simply, Germany are the team to beat in China if any of the other 15 national sides want to have a chance of winning the 2024 IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship title.

With two medals from their two previous IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship appearances – 16 years apart – the current title-holders have cemented themselves already in the history of the sport.

Denmark come to China 2024 as current ANOC World Beach Games (after beating Hungary in the 2019 final) and European Games champions from last summer. And with a fifth-place result at the 2022 IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championships in Greece last time out, they will be fighting for medals again.

Despite those successes, their most recent big event, the 2023 European Championships in Portugal was a disappointment – their 7/8 placement match win over Croatia ensuring qualification for China.

The Aussie women return for their sixth, consecutive IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship after qualifying way back in April 2023 at the Oceania Beach Handball Championships.

They secured their ticket by beating their neighbouring rivals in the final held on the Gold Coast’s Coolangatta Beach for the first time since the lifting of the then Covid-related travel restrictions.

The People's Republic of China return to IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship action after a 12-year gap which has seen Vietnam emerge as Asia’s deadliest threat on the global, women’s stage.

On a continental level, China have not competed since they won the seventh edition of the AHF Women’s Beach Handball Asian Championship on home sand in Weihai five years ago in June 2019.