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Maybe this went by unobserved last week, but Doha hosted a crazy qualification tournament for the Olympic Games.
And the winner was... drum roll... Bahrain!!!

They got the best of Qatar, on their home court in the semis and defeated Korea in the final. Bahrain will be for the first time at the OG and it's totally deserved. They have an interesting team that already showed good stuff in the past 4 years.
More details here.

This is the second big surprise after Brazil was defeated by Chile and finished 3rd in the PanAm Games this summer. Argentina got the direct spot at the OG in the final. More details on this here.

Next up, it's the African Championship (a record 17 teams, in Tunisia) and the Euro (a record of 24 teams) in January 2020.

Also, here's the temporary OQT composition:

Group A: Norway, Spain, Chile, Korea
Group B: France, Croatia, Africa 2, Europe 3
Group C: Germany, Sweden, Europe 2, Africa 3

Hosting rights have been awarded by votes of the IHF Council (yep, apparently this is how they do it now!) to Norway, France and Germany. Should one of them get direct qualification via the Euro, the next team to host will be Croatia.
Of course, things may change following the results at Euro 2020.

mikh wrote:Also, here's the temporary OQT composition:

Group A: Norway, Spain, Chile, Korea
Group B: France, Croatia, Africa 2, Europe 3
Group C: Germany, Sweden, Europe 2, Africa 3

Hosting rights have been awarded by votes of the IHF Council (yep, apparently this is how they do it now!) to Norway, France and Germany. Should one of them get direct qualification via the Euro, the next team to host will be Croatia.
Of course, things may change following the results at Euro 2020.

Isn't Egypt already classified for the olympic qualifiers as the 8th at WCh 2019?

Indeed, very surprising Bahrain's direct qualification for the OG.

^ Not really. Only places 2-7 (6 teams) have secured their spot in the OQT via the WCh.
However, if one of these first 7 wins the Euro in January, then Egypt benefits from this. If Egypt also wins the African Ch. then Brazil gets that place in the OQT.
What's interesting is that if this happens, either Egypt or Brazil will move into group 1 (the easy one), instead of Spain, which will shift to group 2 (unless they win the Euro and they go straight to Tokyo).

mikh wrote:^ Not really. Only places 2-7 (6 teams) have secured their spot in the OQT via the WCh.
However, if one of these first 7 wins the Euro in January, then Egypt benefits from this. If Egypt also wins the African Ch. then Brazil gets that place in the OQT.
What's interesting is that if this happens, either Egypt or Brazil will move into group 1 (the easy one), instead of Spain, which will shift to group 2 (unless they win the Euro and they go straight to Tokyo).

Well, BRA's chances for getting a place on OQT aren't that bad, after all. I can't see the European title not going for CRO, ESP, FRA or NOR (or one of these loosing the title against DEN, I guess it would suffice to give the spot to Egypt on OQT, right?).
Maybe a bigger problem will be EGY winning Africain Championship against TUN in TUN, despite EGY's outstanding performances on recent youth tournments and even adults WCh 2019.

So, today's the day! If Tunisia wins, they put Egypt as well as both Algeria and Angola in the OQTs and Brazil is out.
If Egypt wins, then Brazil goes to OQT1.

mikh wrote:Also, here's the temporary OQT composition:

Group A: Norway, Spain, Chile, Korea
Group B: France, Croatia, Africa 2, Europe 3
Group C: Germany, Sweden, Europe 2, Africa 3

Hosting rights have been awarded by votes of the IHF Council (yep, apparently this is how they do it now!) to Norway, France and Germany. Should one of them get direct qualification via the Euro, the next team to host will be Croatia.
Of course, things may change following the results at Euro 2020.

Updated and final groups for the OQTs, after these evening's finals in Euro and Africa:

Group A: Norway, Brazil, Chile, Korea
Group B: France, Croatia, Tunisia, Portugal
Group C: Germany, Sweden, Slovenia, Algeria

Teams on row 1 are the hosts. All of them look very balanced, with NOR being the only clear favourite. I don't really get why a team that finishes 9th in WCh and misses direct qualification to CHL gets rewarded with a more accessible path to the Games. But OK, that's the system and they stick with it for the past 3 Olympiads.