Romania in the Olympic Games – Handball

A short overview of our country's handball participation in the Summer Olympics

Florin Orban, 25.08.2020, 13:45

Handball was
first introduced as an Olympic event in 1936, at the Berlin Olympics, with 11
field players. It was removed up until the 1972 Munich Olympics, when handball
was reintroduced with 7 field players, but only in the men’s competition. In
1976 women’s handball became an Olympic event.

For Romania, the
top performances came in the men’s competition. In 1972, our handballers
scooped bronze. Romania at the time grabbed 3 wins in the first group stage. In
the main group stage, however, Romania lost to Yugoslavia and thus only
qualified to the bronze final, where it defeated the German Democratic Republic
19-16. The competition’s top scorer that year was Gheorghe Gruia, with 37
goals.

In 1976, in Montreal,
Romania reached the final. The tournament consisted of two groups, Romania
winning one of them after defeating Hungary, the United States and Poland. It
drew against Czechoslovakia, and winning the group got Romania to the grand
final, where it lost 19-15 to the USSR, thus winning silver. Ştefan Birtalan
was the topscorer of the competition with 32 goals, alongside Bent Larsen of
Denmark.

In Moscow, in
1980, the Romanian men’s team walked home with bronze. Romania finished Group B
in second place, losing only to the USSR, which it however knocked out later
22-19. In the bronze final, Romania won 20-18 against Hungary.

Expectations
were running high for Romania at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, considering
countries from the pro-Soviet bloc decided to boycott the competition. Romania
was unfortunate however to be drawn in Group A, where they were outperformed by
Yugoslavia 18-19, thus missing their chance to play the big final. In the
bronze final, Romania defeated Denmark 23-19. Since then, Romania managed to
qualify to the Olympic Games only once, in 1992 in Barcelona.

In the women’s
competition, Romania’s first presence came in in 1976 in Canada. A 24-year
break followed, until the Sydney Olympics of 2000. Our handballers managed to
qualify to the 2008 and 2016 editions, but never managed to get past the
quarterfinals.

(Translated by
V. Palcu)