In August 2016, Brazilian Rio de Janeiro will host 2016 Summer Olympics with 12 women handball national teams competing for gold medals. As of today, we know six teams that will participate in the tournament: the winner of Pan-American Games and the host country Brazil, another finalist of the Pan-American Games – Argentina, reigning World and European champions from Norway, 2014 European Championship finalist – Spain, while Asian and Africa will be represented with continental championships winners – South Korea and Angola. The other six slots are still vacant and two best teams from each of three qualification tournaments that will be held in Denmark, Russia and France from March 18th to March 20th will come to Rio.
Russia alongside with national teams of Sweden, Poland and Mexico will compete in Astrakhan, France hosts 2015 World championship finalists from the Netherlands and two non-European teams – Japan and Tunisia as both of the teams finished second in Asian and African championships. At the same time Montenegro, Romania and Denmark will play a game of “odd man out” as the forth team – Uruguay – hardly have a chance to compete with solid European squads. While it is not clear if home court will help Danish team to win a trip to Rio, one does not have to be a prophet to predict France and the Netherlands is too much for Japan and Tunisia who finished 19th and 21st at 2015 World Championship. The power balance in the third qualification tournament is very close to what is going to happen in Denmark: Russia, Sweden and Poland will decide who will have some plans for the upcoming summer and who can start planning their vacation. Team Mexico will come to Astrakhan to get some experience playing against not European powerhouses but very reputable national squads.
It is the third time only when the Olympic qualification is held – up to 2004 Olympics, all teams get their slots based on the results of World and continental championships. First qualification tournaments were held before Beijing Olympics – while team Russia was the reigning World champion, Sweden and Poland had some more matches to play to qualify. The Scandinavians succeeded while Polish team could make it falling short to Hungary and Romania. But in 2011 World Championship coach Evgeny Trefilov’s squad finished 6th and went to Denmark to get this experience of getting to the Olympics through qualification tournament, but had no problems dealing with Dominican Republic, Tunisia and the host team with three wins and “+44” goal difference. The last match against Denmark was formal – both teams had their Olympic slots granted. Neither team Mexico nor Poland or Sweden participated in that qualification tournament: both Mexico and Poland did not succeed in World or continental championships while Sweden had a direct invite to London.
