Men’s handball
The handball tournament at the Olympic Games has twelve teams, and Hungary is one of them!
At the weekend’s qualifying tournament in Tatabánya, the duel with Portugal became a real final. After the mandatory win against Tunisia (33:24), Hungary was left behind against favorite Norway (25:29) on Saturday. The Vikings, who were still disappointing at the European Championships, defeated Portugal 32:29 at the start and qualified early for Paris with their win against hosts Hungary. On Sunday evening it was between Hungary and Portugal for second place in the tournament.
Wings and goalkeepers shine
The Hungarians started with concentration and with goals from Zoltán Szita, who was uncontrollable in the early stages, they moved ahead to 7:4 after ten minutes and 13:9 after twenty minutes. But although second keeper László Bartucz, who came on for Roland Mikler after just 15 minutes, was able to parry five balls before the break, the score was only 16:16 at halftime. The reason: The Portuguese were able to fire half a dozen more shots, the Hungarians made – once again – too many technical errors.
After the break, things became even more precarious, as three players suffered injuries and defensive specialist Adrián Sipos had to go to the locker room early with a red card. Despite all these handicaps, the Portuguese led by a maximum of three goals (21:18), but ten minutes before the final whistle they still led by 24:22. But now the right winger Bence Imre became the joker, scoring five goals on the assembly line and in the end, with nine out of nine, he was completely deservedly voted “Player of the Day”. At the back, László Bartucz made several brilliant saves in the dramatic final minutes, so that the Hungarians ultimately secured a seemingly confident victory 30:27.
Chema sees a big family
It is the Hungarian handball men’s first Olympic participation since London 2012, when they finished 4th. National coach Chema Rodríguez thanked the enthusiastic audience and emphasized that Tatabánya’s success was a bit of compensation for the disappointing performance at the home European Championships 2022 in Budapest’s MVM Dome. “The country and this team deserve to be at the Olympics. We are like one big family – the boys proved again today that this is not just an empty phrase.”
#Dream #Paris #true