Olympic Prospects

olympic prospects The Romanian women’s handball squad stands good chances to represent us in Tokyo Olympics

The only Romanian side qualified for the Olympics in Tokyo so far is the men's football team. Good chances though also stands the Romanian women's handball side, one of the world's best. The pre-Olympics tournament has been scheduled for March next year. It was initially supposed to take place in Podgorica, Montenegro over March 20th and 22nd 2020, but the coronavirus pandemic has prompted the authorities to change the timetable.


If nothing changes until next spring, Romania's opponents will be Montenegro, Norway and Thailand. The Asian side is not seen as a redoubtable opponent, so three teams will be actually vying for qualification and two will get plane tickets for Tokyo. Norway and Montenegro are favourites, as they ranked 4th and 5th in the World Championships hosted by Japan, last year.


Romania came 12th in the aforementioned competition. Furthermore, Montenegro has a trump card against the Romanians, in the person of assistant coach Adrian Vasile, the head technician of Romanian side CSM Bucharest, one of Romania's top-notch sides. The three handball squads are supposed to meet in winter at the European Championships in Norway and Denmark. Through a European Handball Federation decision, Romania plays straight into the final tournament.


The games that remained to be played in the preliminaries, had to be canceled. Four legs had been left out from the initial qualification campaign. Romania, which was in a group with Poland, Ukraine and the Faeroe Islands had two wins out of two games played. Lots for the final tournament are to be cast in Vienna on June 18th.


Bogdan Burcea, headcoach of Romania's national squad, said, quote 'the European Championship could be an exceptional means of training, both for the girls and for us. During the tournament we can have positive experiences, which can help us in the pre-Olympics tournament next spring, when we qualify Romania for the Olympic Games in Tokyo' end of quote. Agerpres news agency has taken the quotation from the Romanian Handball Federation's Facebook page.

(translated by bill)



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Publicat: 2020-04-30 13:45:00
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