Hungary successfully defend beach title

The third Women’s U18 Beach Handball European Championship has been staged in Georgia from Friday 6th to Sunday 8th July.

Eight teams competed to be the European champion in beach handball.

Defending champions Hungary were able to defend their title and are once again European champions.

The second place goes to Turkey, who were also runners-up in 2008, and the Russian team secured the bronze medal in its first participation.

On the first day, the eight teams were divided into two groups. Every team played against all their competitors.

Hungary and Russia were the winners of those groups after winning three matches out of three.

On Saturday, the groups got mixed up. The second and the fourth ranked team of each group went to the other group.

The winners of these groups were Turkey and Russia.

In the quarter-finals, Turkey beat Georgia (2-0), Hungary won against Switzerland (2-0), the Russian team defeated Armenia (2-0) and Norway surprisingly won against Ukraine (2-1).

In the semi-final, Turkey clearly defeated the Norwegian team (2-0) and Hungary won against the Russian squad (2-0) that didn`t lose a game until then.

In the final, Hungary beat the team from Turkey (0-2) after an exciting match.

Over the whole weekend the Hungarian team lost only a single game out of nine.

The only team that could defeat the winner of the Beach Handball European Championship, on the second day, was the silver medalists Turkey.

Turkey were only defeated twice during the tournament. They lost their first game against Russia (0-2) and the final against the Hungarian.

The Russian team lost only a single match during the competition. Unfortunately this was the semi-final against Hungary. They easily won the match for 3rd and 4th place against Norway (2-0).

Complete ranking:

1.    Hungary
2.    Turkey
3.    Russia
4.    Norway
5.    Ukraine
6.    Switzerland
7.    Georgia
8.    Armenia

All the results from the Women’s U18 Beach Handball European Championship can be found here.