Draw for Beach Handball at the World Games

Basel – Switzerland, May 07, 2013: The 2013 Beach Handball Tournament at the IWGA World Games will be staged in Cali, Colombia from 1 to 4 August. 16 teams (eight men’s and eight women’s teams) will compete in this event. The draw of the preliminary round groups will take place on 8 May, 16:00 local time, at the IHF Head Office in Basel and will be conducted by Giampiero Masi, Chairman of the IHF Beach Handball Working Group.

Based on the decision of the Executive Committee of the International Handball Federation, the following procedure and seeding for the draw will be applied:

Men’s tournament

• Organizer – COL

• 2012 World Champion – BRA

• Asia 1 – QAT

• Europe 1 – CRO

• Africa 1 – EGY (substituted by: RUS)

• Oceania 1 – AUS (after a continental qualification)

• Pan-America 1 – VEN (after a continental qualification)

In order to qualify directly for the World Games from the 2012 World Championships a team needed to be classified among the top 10 teams of the World Championships. If a continent did not comply with this standard it was obliged to hold a qualification tournament. AUS and VEN qualified through such tournaments organized by their respective Continental Confederation.

As Egypt withdrew their right to participate in the event and no other African team took part in the event, based on the performance at the 2012 Beach Handball World Championship, RUS was the first substitute.

a) No more than two teams from the same continent can be placed in the same group:

Pots:

Pot 1: World Champion 2012, EUR 1

BRA, UKR

Pot 2: EUR 2, EUR 3

CRO, RUS

Pot 3: ASI 1, Organizer

QAT, COL

Pot 4: OCE 1, PAN 1

AUS, VEN

Procedure:

The teams drawn from Pot #1 will be placed respectively as A1 or B1;

The teams drawn from Pot #2 will be placed respectively as A2 or B2;

Host (COL) will choose which group it will be part of and will be placed as A3 or B3 and ASI 1 (QAT) will be placed in the other group;

Should one of the groups have two teams from Pan-America, PAN 1 (VEN) will be placed in the opposite group, while OCE 1 (AUS) will be assigned the remaining slot. If not;

The teams drawn from Pot #4 will be placed respectively as A4 or B4.

Women’s tournament

• Organizer – COL

• 2012 World Champion – BRA

• Asia 1 – TPE

• Europe 1 – NOR

• Africa 1 – TUN

• Oceania 1 – AUS

• Pan-America 1 – URU

In order to qualify directly for the World Games from the 2012 World Championships, a team needed to be classified among the top 10 teams of the World Championships. If a continent did not comply with this standard it was obliged to hold a qualification tournament. As CHN withdrew their right to participate and no other team from Asia had the needed ranking to qualify directly, TPE qualified in such a manner. As no representative from Africa participated in the Championships in Oman, TUN qualified for the World Games through their Continental Confederation as well.

Denmark as Vice World Champion withdrew their right to participate in the World Games 2013. As the slot belonged to the continent of the second-best team at the 2012 Beach Handball World Championship (Europe), based on their performance at the mentioned event, the National Federation of HUN accepted the right to participate in Cali.

b) No more than two teams from the same continent can be placed in the same group:

Pots:

Pot 1: World Champion 2012, EUR 1

BRA, NOR

Pot 2: EUR 2, PAN 1

HUN, URU

Pot 3: OCE 1, Organizer

AUS, COL

Pot 4: ASI 1, AFR 1

TPE, TUN

Procedure:

The teams drawn from Pot #1 will be placed respectively as A1 or B1;

The teams drawn from Pot #4 will be placed respectively as A4 or B4;

Host (COL) will choose which group it will be part of and will be placed as A3 or B3 and OCE 1 (AUS) will be placed in the other group;

If one of the groups has two representatives from Pan-America, PAN 1 (URU) from Pot #2 will be placed in the opposite group and EUR 2 (HUN) will be assigned the remaining slot. If not the teams drawn from Pot #2 will be placed respectively as A2 or B2. —- IHF