Portugal (M) & Brazil (W) win 22nd FISU World University Handball Championship
After 7 days of handball, two new university handball champs were crowned at the 22nd World University Handball Championship in Guimarães, Portugal, i.e. Portugal (M) and Brazil (W). During the last day of the WUC, the fans could witness the last 8 ranking games of the event for the top eight teams of each gender.
Women’s Tournament
Czech Republic smashed Mexico by 42-20, and placed 7th. Mexico’s defence was never able to prevent the attacks and counterattacks from Czech team. Spain and Japan faced each other for the 5th place. Until minute 15, it was a balanced game, but after that Spain changed its defence, and kept scoring till the final result 31-17. Romania and Korea faced-off for the 3rd and 4th place, and the Korean squad won by 20-30. The game started balanced but before the break Korea achieved a small advantage of 3 points. This superiority was maintained, Korea dominated and won the match. The university women’s squad of Brazil won the 22nd WUC of handball by 17-24 against Russia. Brazil began to lead and after ten minutes was already leading by 0-6. The Russian team tried to recover, reaching 4-6. However, Brazil maintained the advantage, winning by 9-14 at the break. In the second half of the game, Brazil opened the score and increased the lead taking the gold.
Men’s Tournament
Czech Republic and Chinese Taipei met to set the 7th and 8th places. The first half of the game was balanced but in the second half, Czech Republic was stronger and ended the match winning by 31-22. Egypt won over Romania and placed 5th. It was a balanced game, so that the 60′ ended with a tie at 30 goals. At 7m shoots, the Egyptian squad scored 4 goals against 3 from Romania. Russia and Spain fought for the bronze medal. Russia lead the scoreboard most of the time, but Spain never allowed more than a 4 goals difference, that they managed to recover, so that the game ended with a tie at 26 goals. The match was decided on tiebreak with 7 meters shots. The Spanish team managed to score three goals (29) against two of Russia (28), and won the Bronze medal. Portugal won over Brazil by 29-23 in the men’s final. Portugal was almost always ahead of the scoreboard, despite of the good game by Brazil. Portugal went into the break winning, and Brazil came to the second half determined to change it. They managed to get ahead of the scoreboard once, but Portugal quickly reviewed its defence, and kept scoring until the final 6 goals difference. After being 2nd placed at 21st WUC in Blumenau, Brazil, in 2012, the Portuguese national team won it is first WUC title!