The runners-up at the 2019 EHF Women’s European Beach Handball Championship will be one of the favourites for the title in Qatar as they look to use a mixture of youth and experience to grab the inaugural World Beach Games title.

They claimed silver in their continental championship in Poland after losing to Denmark in the final, but with the result, confirmed their participation at Qatar 2019 after Denmark’s fifth place at the 2018 IHF Women’s Beach Handball Championship had already seen them book their ticket to Doha.

As current world champions, Greece know they have a target on their back on the beaches of Qatar as their opponents will be looking to test their skills against the number one team in the world.

That global title came at the 2018 IHF Women’s Beach Handball World Championship, held in Kazan, Russia, in what was a Greek fairy-tale. In their debut appearance on the world stage, they lost their opening match against the defending champions Spain on a shoot-out, but went on to win against Australia, Paraguay, Chinese Taipei and Uruguay, losing only against Poland in the main round.

Spain’s women appear at Qatar 2019 still coming to terms with the sudden death of their 49-year-old coach Diego Carrasco in July and will be full of emotion as they look to make the podium in Doha. 

After two silver medals (in 2011 and 2013) Denmark’s women finally got gold at the Beach EURO, as they defeated Hungary in the final to take the continental title and head coach Morten Frandsen Holmen and his assistant Tina Kirstine Schou Jakobsen will be hoping history can repeat on a global stage soon after silver medals at the 2010 and 2012 World Championships which saw the national team go four straight championships in a row with a silver medal.

A resurgent beach handball programme for P.R. of China has seen the nation step back onto the global stage after a spell in the late 2000s and early 2010s where the team competed at three IHF Women’s World Championships finishing in the bottom three places each time but improving from a 12th and bottom-placed finish in 2008, to 11th in 2010, and then into the top 10 in 2012, finishing ninth.

Marcio Magliano, coach of the Brazilian women’s team, revealed to IHF.info ahead of Qatar 2019 that he expects the competition in Doha to be the “most difficult competition in our history.”

Australia’s women are becoming a mainstay on the international beach handball circuit, having appeared at the last two editions of the World Games (2013, 2017),  the 2017 IHF U17 Beach Handball World Championship and the last four editions of the IHF Beach Handball World Championships – 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018.

They qualified for Qatar 2019 after defeating American Samoa 2-0 in the final of the 2019 Oceania (OCHF) Beach Handball Championship back in February in Adelaide, Australia – a title they have held since 2012.

Japan 2019 is a watershed moment for the 2016 Olympic Games Champions.

As part of the Soviet Union, they won six medals from 1973 to 1990 – including gold in 1982, 1986 and 1990. As the Russian Federation, they dominated women’s handball throughout the 2000s, winning four world titles from 2001 to 2009, but have not made it to the podium since, finishing fifth or sixth and not even qualifying in 2013.

Romania remain the only nation to have qualified for every IHF Women’s World Championship. In 2019, they will begin their 24th participation with a remarkably up-and-down few years behind them. However, the current squad have been developing well – both individually and regarding the collective style of play – and it appears to be only a matter of time before all the pieces fall into place for Romania to win a major title.