After three weeks, the World Handball Championship 2025 is coming to an end. Four finalists remain, including last year's champions Denmark, but not the finalists Sweden, which didn't even make it into the quarter-finals. The semi-finals take place today (Thursday, January 30) and tomorrow (Friday, January 31).
Lately, nobody can stop Denmark. The Danish men's team has won the tournament (held every two years) three consecutive times, in 2019, 2021 and 2023. They also won the Gold Medal in Paris 2024 (Silver in Tokyo, Gold in Rio).
After Wednesday's quarter-final victory against Brazil (33-21) they have extended an unprecedented winning streak of 35 games. Even if they conceded too much ground to Brazil in the first half, which ended 15-12. Brazil is the twice champion in the South and Central American Men's Handball Championship, founded in 2020 (the most recent champion, from 2024, is Argentina).
Denmark's next rival is Portugal, on Friday, in Bærum, near Oslo, Norway. It should be a relatively easy victory, but Portugal are the breakthrough star of the tournament: a nation that has never reached the top four since the competition started in 1938, and only one semi-final earlier. In the quarterfinals, they defeated Germany 31-30.