Rio 2016 Olympics - men

[mikh]

Asian qualification tournament took place in Doha (QAT) over the past 10 days.

Qatar clearly won all matches and dismantled Iran both in the group round, as well as in the final.
Korea suffered a surprising defeat in their final group match against Bahrain 30:31 (after leading 19:12 at HT)
Then they lost to Qatar after a disappointing start (they were 6:0 and 7:1 down after the first 15 minutes).
Overall they displayed interesting, fast-paced, high technique individual handball, but their defense has to be one of the worse in ages and their team skills are not as good as they used to be. They were then thrashed in the bronze final, -12, again to Bahrain.

Thus, Qatar goes to the OG and Iran and Bahrain to the Olympic Qualification Tournaments.

This has repercussions on the other OQT, meaning that by virtue of their WCh bronze medal, Poland is really close to returning to the OG. If they don't obtain direct qualification from the ECh at homeground in January, they'll be considered World 2 and go in group 1, against World 7, Chile and Africa 2.

Also, this means Slovenia is also now guaranteed at least an OQT, by virtue of their WCh 8th place.

Next up: ECh in Poland and African Championship in Egypt, both of them in January 2016.

[Ivar]

I miss South Korea, but Qatar qualifying directly means that there'll be one less team competing for the Olympic Qualification spots in the 2016 Euro.

As far as I understand it, the Olympic qualification spot priority hierarchy for European teams is Direct > WCh > Euro. So in 2016, Macedonia, Serbia, Iceland, Belarus, Norway, Sweden, Hungary, Russia and Montenegro are the teams who will be fighting for the three Euro spots. In case one of those qualifies directly in the Euro, the three spots will go to the next teams in line on the aforementioned list.

But if one of the teams who got an OQT spot from the WCh wins the Euro, I'm assuming the OQT WCh spots will shift one place down giving Macedonia a spot, since they ranked one place below Slovenia in the WCh.

So theoretically, the three OQT spots left for European teams could go to the 9th, 10th, and 11th place if, for example, these are the top 8 results:

1. France
2. Poland
3. Spain
4. Denmark
5. Croatia
6. Germany
7. Slovenia
8. Macedonia

Second to eighth place could be re-arranged however you want, this is just an example. The result is the same as long as France is first and the other seven teams are all in the top 8.

I think I got this right. This whole thing is a complicated mess.

[Rammy]

Three European spots? No way. There are only two OQT spots available. And there will be need for the IHF to change that as Germany are already in. But indeed, nine and ten could qualify, you are right about that.

[Ivar]

You're right, I must've misread something somewhere. That makes the fight for the spots quite a bit tougher.

[kleber]

So Basicaly what Russia needs to go at least to the olympic qual?

Serbia,Iceland,Slovenia and Montenegro are out of the euro.

[mikh]

^ Win the Euro or lose the final to France => straight to the OG.
Or be Europe 2 or 3 (semis at least) => OQT
If France plays the final, they can even be 4th.

[Mixball]

^ Win the Euro or lose the final to France => straight to the OG.
Or be Europe 2 or 3 (semis at least) => OQT
If France plays the final, they can even be 4th.

Besides straight to OG as above, OQT looks like to be reached by the best placed of RUS/HUN/SWE and probably NOR (BLR/MKD).
So a victory against SWE should probably do it for RUS.

[kleber]

^ Win the Euro or lose the final to France => straight to the OG.
Or be Europe 2 or 3 (semis at least) => OQT
If France plays the final, they can even be 4th.

Besides straight to OG as above, OQT looks like to be reached by the best placed of RUS/HUN/SWE and probably NOR (BLR/MKD).
So a victory against SWE should probably do it for RUS.

so they need to be ahead of norway?might be tricky that,norway have 4 points going into the main round.

[Mixball]

^ Win the Euro or lose the final to France => straight to the OG.
Or be Europe 2 or 3 (semis at least) => OQT
If France plays the final, they can even be 4th.

Besides straight to OG as above, OQT looks like to be reached by the best placed of RUS/HUN/SWE and probably NOR (BLR/MKD).
So a victory against SWE should probably do it for RUS.

so they need to be ahead of norway?might be tricky that,norway have 4 points going into the main round.

No there are two spots. They need to be ahead of BLR,MKD,HUN,SWE. Even MKD is no threat in some cases of EC winner.

[kleber]

Besides straight to OG as above, OQT looks like to be reached by the best placed of RUS/HUN/SWE and probably NOR (BLR/MKD).
So a victory against SWE should probably do it for RUS.

so they need to be ahead of norway?might be tricky that,norway have 4 points going into the main round.

No there are two spots. They need to be ahead of BLR,MKD,HUN,SWE. Even MKD is no threat in some cases of EC winner.

wow so Russia-Sweden tomorow will be a huge huge game.

[mikh]

Norway is sure of at least the OQT. If Norway doesn't win the tournament or doesn't play the final against France, Macedonia will also progress to the OQT.
Russia or Sweden really close to securing the last OQT place. Goal difference might be the deciding factor. Hungary in with a little chance if they win their last 2 matches and Russia loses to Spain.

[mikh]

Sweden => OQT
Norway secures at least the OQT spot; now
- if Norway becomes European champion, they go straight to the OG and Russia goes to the OQT
- otherwise, Macedonia goes to the OQT with Norway

[mikh]

And the OQTs will look like this:

OQT1: Poland, Macedonia, Chile, Tunisia
OQT2: Spain, Slovenia, Iran, Sweden
OQT3: Denmark, Croatia, Norway, Bahrain

Any speculations on the hosts?
Probably Poland will be compensated over the decision concerning the women team. Then again, they shouldn't have any problem qualifying from that group regardless of the host.

Probably Spain and Denmark will get the other two. Or is Bahrain having an offer too hard to decline?

In any case, let the lobbying begin!

[mikh]

The African Handball Championship finished tonight, in Cairo.

In the final, Egypt - Tunisia 21:19 (9:10).
The result means Egypt qualifies for the OG and Tunisia completes OQT-1. I've updated the groups in my post above.

[MED]

I am happy that Egypt qualified to Rio the 6th appearance in the last 7 olympic games

[Marco Aurelio]

I'd modify the system of the OQT-entries, by giving the best continent (Europe) 3 places, the 2nd best wouzld have 2 places, the 3rd best 1 place and the 4th 0 place.
And calculating the best via the combined score of the 3 best teams.

[karel]

Probably Poland will be compensated over the decision concerning the women team. Then again, they shouldn't have any problem qualifying from that group regardless of the host.

You are talking about Poland, remember... Home ground for Poland is sometimes a big disadvantage

[Ivar]

Spain just fukked up majorly...

[karel]

Three matches - three wins. A really nice beginning for Talant Duyshebaev as a coach of Polish NT and we are going to Rio.
Yesterday's match against Tunisia was a fight, although both teams have had already won its place in Olympics - Tunisian players were provoking a lot, but we were better and should get some "easier" opponents in the OG tournament (I'm writning in"" marks, because there won't be really easy opponents in Rio). Macedonia looked really bad in Poland, that was much weakre team than during ECh.
OG without Spain... Strange thing... But great job by Slovenia!

[Marco Aurelio]

The fall of Spain might lead to the re-think of the qualification system.
If they remain with the current system, then they must favorize the 2nd, 3rd, 4th team of the WCh with the organizing rights.
But I would rather give these teams direct tickets to the Olympic games, and let the remaining 3 spots be determined by one single qualification tournament of 10 or 12 teams.
And I would also change the WCh playing system, because this 1/8 final-involving stuff is unbalanced.

[Denmark-fan]

It's insane that Spain, a team that have been in the semi of last 3 european and world champs don't make it. It is unfair, yes it is, but that's how it works, and some other good teams like Norway, Iceland, Hungary, Serbia and so on will be out as well. I just hope this will lead IHF to rethink its qualification system.

It's going to be a very tough competition, no weak team, and everyone almost in the same level, with France and Denmark with a little advantage

GO DANMARK !! GO BRAZIL !!

[mikh]

Time to expand the men's OG to 16 teams. And make something serious with these OQTs. Their structure is a farce.

[mikh]

^ Norway clearly cannot manage the stress of decisive matches. Too much nerves in front of goal.
But let's not forget that in order to get here, they took some big scalps, so being cynical about their missed qualification is a bit too much. It's not as if they invited the Danes to score one more goal. Their neighbours are not rookies either and were playing for the same stakes. They genuinely f*ed it up in the first minutes against Croatia when every ball from every position was stickin to Stepanović (the Polish can testify about the exact same frustrating feeling).
They just need to be in semi-finals scenarios a couple more times and they'll learn their lesson. I hope they'll be there for Tokyo and I hope we get more from them in the next years; this team is so fun and enjoyable to watch!

The quali system needs to be rethought: the Olympiad is the period between 2 Olympics and it should reflect more of what teams are doing in this time-span (with an emphasis on the years closer to the Games). Unfortunately, I don't think IHF has the brain-power to come up with something much better.

[mikh]

Time to expand the men's OG to 16 teams. And make something serious with these OQTs. Their structure is a farce.

I'd go for 16 teams Olympics and the old structure of water-polo EC. 4 groups of 4. First placed teams go straight in the quarters. Second and third placed teams play crossed matches for the other 4 places in the quarters. Then it's regular business from there.

[Ivar]

It makes no sense to me that only every other Euro and WCh gives Olympic spots... these tournaments happen every two years, both should give spots instead of just the one closest to the next Olympics.

And the IHF really needs to ditch the qualification tournaments and just give the best performing teams direct spots (with maybe some intercontinental playoffs), since the Olympics are really just a walled off elite tournament anyways. Holding a qualification tournament for a qualification tournament is just redundant.