Men's Handball

The British Handball Association (BHA) has invited talented athletes to try the game in the hope that some can be fast-tracked to international quality. The target is London 2012, but the BHA has already played games against Austrlai as part of the development process.

Form

The British Men's Handball team was not one of the sixteen teams that qualified for last year's European Championship in fact there has never been a British team at either the World of European Championshoips.

Qualification

The Olympic tournament is as twelve team competition for which the qualification process has already begun. The competing teams will be;

• China - Host Nation
• Germany - Winner of the World Championships (Germany, 19 January – 4 February 2007)
• Winner of Pan-American Games (Brazil, 14-29 July 2007)
• Winner of the European Championship (Norway, 17 - 27 January 2008)
• Winner of the Asian Olympic Qualifying Event
• Winner of the African Olympic Qualifying Event
• Two from Olympic Qualifying Tournament 1 (Poland as 2nd in World Champs, Spain as 7th in World Champs, and teams from Europe and Pan America)
• Two from Olympic Qualifying Tournament 2 (Denmark as 3rd in World Champs, Russia as 6th in World Champs, and team froms Africa and the top continent at the World Championships)
• Tournament 3 (France as 4th in World Champs, Croatia as 5th in World Champs, and team from Asia and 2nd continent at the World Championships)

The Olympic Qualifying Tournaments will be held from 30 May to 1 June 2008. If one of the teams that has qualified, for the Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, from the World Championship wins the continental championship, it will automatically qualify and all lower ranked teams will move one place up giving the 8th-place team from the World Championship (Iceland) the chance to participate in the qualifying tournament.

What to watch

Handball is an Olympic sport where Britain has absolutely no pedigree. That said, it is a dynamic and exciting sport to watch (on television) and so we have decided that we would like to see some of the preliminary games in the handball competition during our Beijing trip as one of Olympic Experience ticket selections.