RRI Sports Club

Handball

Florin Orban, 13.12.2023, 13:45

For Romania’s
women’s handball team, the World Championship held these days in Denmark,
Sweden and Norway came to an end. The Romanians finished on 12th place,
after concluding the main group III stage on the 3rd place. Coach Florentin
Pera’s students lost to Denmark and Germany, which finished on the top 2
positions and moved on to the quarter-finals. Romania won all the other group
matches, against Chile, Serbia, Japan and Poland, but this was not enough.

Romania
could have finished on a higher place in the final ranking, had they not lost
their 3rd match in the world competition with a 16-goal defeat to Denmark.
Because of its poor goal average, Romania was taken over in the final ranking
by Brazil, Hungary and Slovenia, which came out 9th, 10th
and 11th, respectively.

Under these
circumstances, the Romanian players’ chances to qualify for the pre-Olympic
tournaments are now null. Basically, the World Championship in Scandinavia sends
its winners straight to the 2024 Olympics, with the next 6 places in the
standings securing a ticket to the pre-Olympic qualifiers due in April.

Of the
quarter-finalists, France, which hosts next year’s Games, and defending
champions Norway, are already qualified for the Paris Olympics. Taking part in
the pre-Olympic tournaments are also the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Sweden,
Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. And since one of these teams is set to
win the World Championship, this will free an extra spot for the pre-Olympics
qualifiers. This spot should have been taken by Brazil, which finished 9th,
but because this team is already qualified thanks to their win of the
Pan-American Games, its place was taken by Hungary.

As for
Romania’s performance at the World Championship, the progress made by the team
since coach Florentin Pera joined the staff is quite notable. Although star
player Cristina Neagu missed most of the matches because of an injury, the
Romanian team played well and was on a par with the other participants, except
for Denmark. Excellent performances came from Eliza Buceschi, who was the best
player of the team in all the 4 matches won by Romania. Goalkeepers Daciana
Hosu and Diana Ciucă also put up good performances, making up for the absence
of Iulia Dumanska. (AMP)