Sand handball in Paris-2024: understand how it works and who will participate in the exhibition | olympics

Created in the late 1980s, beach handball is one of the new features at Paris 2024. Although the sand sport is not yet considered Olympic, the sport will feature an exhibition tournament bringing together the best players in the world during the Olympics in the capital French. The biggest medalist in the world championships, Brazil arrives as one of the stars of the competition. Understand more about the game and find out what the dispute will be like.

In recent Olympic editions, it has been common to hold exhibition tournaments for new sports that are not yet part of the Games calendar. The beach handball presentation event is part of a partnership between the Paris 2024 organization and the International Handball Federation. The dispute will be accompanied by a series of celebrations that will include the passing of the Olympic flame, live broadcasts of games and other free programming, in Cretéil, France.

Although beach handball is not among the most popular sports in green and yellow lands, Brazil leads the ranking of world championship medals in the sport. The country has eight gold medals in total, with five in the men’s and three in the women’s, in addition to three silvers and three bronzes.

Patricia Scheppa
Carolina Pires Militao
Renata da Silva Santiago
Nathalie Souza Guedes de Sena

Gil Vicente de Paes
Bruno Carlos de Oliveira
Thiago de Oliveira Barcelos

The exhibition tournament will be held on the 27th, 28th and 29th of July, at the Maison du Handball, in Créteil, 20 km from the Olympic Stadium. The six teams will be led by sports medalists, such as Argentina’s Letícia Brunati, who won gold at the 2018 Youth Games.

For three days, three teams with stars of mixed nationalities from world handball and one from the French team will fight for victory, both in women’s and men’s. In total, there will be 64 athletes competing among the best in the world, 32 men and 32 women.

In total, the best players from 18 countries will make up the teams for the Paris tournament. They are: Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Qatar, China, Croatia, Denmark, Spain, United States, France, Greece, Netherlands, Hungary, Iran, Norway, Poland, Portugal and Uruguay.

With a completely different scenario from traditional handball, the first rules for the sand version were established in 1990, based on the beach volleyball court markings. In the 2000s, the sport was recognized by the European Handball Federation, reaching a global level in 2004, with the first World Cup in the category, in Egypt. In 2018, the sport debuted in the Olympic arenas of the Buenos Aires Youth Games, and will finally be presented during the Olympics in July 2024.

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For those who are used to watching indoor handball disputes, it is not that difficult to understand the dynamics on the beach, as the movements are similar, but it is worth mentioning that both the rules and the point count are very different. Switching from hard ground to soft sand means the ball lands softer, for starters. If on the indoor court physical contact is almost mandatory, on the beach, meetings between opponents are avoided as much as possible.

Up to ten players can be listed per match, but only four are on the court.

Counting time and points

A beach handball match has two 10-minute halves, with a five-minute break between them. The goal count is separated by period, and winning a half means adding a point, like a volleyball set.

If the draw occurs during one of the halves, the decision is made by the “Golden Goal”, that is, the team that scores the first goal takes the partial. However, if after two halves the score is 1-1, the victory of the match will be decided in a similar way to penalty kicks in football. In other words, five players from each team need to hit shots from 6 meters, facing the goalkeeper.

In the sand version of handball, there are three situations that can earn two points: goals in which the player controls the ball in the air, shots from six meters and goalkeeper goals.