World Handball Championship has reached the halfway point: after the preliminary stage, the 32 nations have been divided in two: the main round of the Championship, and the Presidential Round.
Handball Championships works a little differently to other competitions. The group stage has two parts: the preliminary round, with 32 teams divided into eight groups. After three games, the top three teams from each group move into the main round, but the worst teams of each group are not eliminated. Instead, they move into a "parallel competition", called the President's Cup.
The President's Cup is divided into two groups. Group I has Poland, Algeria, Kuwait and Guinea. Group II has United States, Japan, Bahrain and Cuba. After three group games, there will be fixtures to determine the places from 31st to 25th, which is the best one nations on President's Cup can aim to.
World Handball Championship Main Round starts today
Meanwhile, the best three nations from each of the preliminary groups move into the Main Round, divided into four groups of six. But this time, results from the preliminary round carry over. Only the two best teams from each group will move into quarter-finals.
So far, these are the groups from the Main Round and the results carried over from the Preliminary Round:
Group I
- Denmark: 4 points
- Germany: 4 points
- Italy: 2 points
- Switzerland: 1 point
- Czech Republic: 1 point
- Tunisia: 0 points
Group II
- France: 4 points
- Hungary: 3 points
- Netherlands: 2 points
- Austria: 2 points
- North Macedonia: 1 point
- Qatar: 0 points
Group III
- Portugal: 4 points
- Sweden: 3 points
- Spain: 3 points
- Brazil: 2 points
- Norway: 0 points
- Chile: 0 points
Group IV
- Egypt: 4 points
- Iceland: 4 points
- Croatia: 2 points
- Slovenia: 2 points
- Cape Verde: 0 points
- Argentina: 0 points
Games for Group I and II will take place on January 21, 23 and 25, while games for Groups III and IV will take place on January 22, 24 and 26.
