Every goal counts for the Olympic qualification

Sit back and relax – when it comes to the upcoming EHF EURO 2016 and its relevance to the qualification for the Olympic Games that applies to just about half the teams in Poland.

France, courtesy of their victory at the World Championship 2015 in Qatar, are already qualified for Rio 2016. Poland (3^rd at Qatar 2015), Spain (4^th), Denmark (5^th), Croatia (6^th), Germany (7^th) and Slovenia (8^th) already have a place in one of the three qualification tournaments.

The situation for these qualification tournaments currently looks as follows

Chile is the third-ranked team from the 2015 Pan-American Games; Iran and Bahrain ranked second and third at the Asian Olympic Qualification.

Should any of the six European teams currently with a spot in the qualification win the EHF EURO or come second behind France, FYR Macedonia, as the team ranked 9^th at the World Championship 2015, would get a spot in one of the tournaments.

The remaining two qualification spots will be given to the two best-ranked teams that do not have a place yet and don’t qualify directly – and this is where it becomes interesting.

Theoretically, for example if the European teams ranked among the first nine at the World Championship, occupy the same places again at Poland 2016, the teams ranked ninth and tenth at the EHF EURO 2016 would be the lucky ones securing a spot in the qualification.

And ranks 9 and 10 are the first two not being decided by a placement match but by calculation at the end of the main round – this is why every goal counts for the qualification to the 2016 Olympic Games.

Together with France, Brazil as hosts, Qatar as Asian champions, Argentina as second ranked team at the 2015 Pan-American Games are already qualified for Rio 2016. They will be joined by the European champion (or the team ranked second if France win) and the winner of the African Cup of Nations that will be determined at the end of January in Egypt.

The qualification will be played from 8 to 10 April 2016. The hosts will be announced by the International Handball Federation.