The Danish beach handball player Mikkel Staerk Just plows through the sand towards the goal. He stops just behind the six-meter line, jumps up, makes a pirouette (a 360-degree turn in the air), shoots the ball towards the goal and scores: two points. There will be very few team- and ball sports, where spectacle is the starting point. In fact: where spectacular scores are rewarded extra. Beach handball is one of them. A score as described above, or an alley oop or in-flights, where the ball is plucked from the air and fired towards the goal in one motion, is intended to entertain players, and spectators alike.
And that is exactly what is happening at the European Beach Handball Championships in Nazaré, Portugal. Unsuspecting tourists who enjoy their retirement strolling along the boulevard, suddenly see athletes flying over the sand. “I like it,” says an elderly American woman. “My ancestors are from Croatia and they seem pretty good at this game. I’ve never seen it played on the sand before and I don’t know the rules, but I like it!”
The Portuguese seaside resort already hosted a youth beach handball tournament in 2016, a plus for the organization. “We know that there is a wonderful accommodation here, the infrastructure is good. So, we all ready knew it’s kind of a beach handball city”, Gabriele Horvath, the Hungarian chairman of the EHF Beach handball commission. “Normally this stadium is used during the summer for beach handball,” adds Tobia Pisani, the tournament director. “That’s why we know the advantages of Nazaré. But we also try to go to new countries. That’s important for our legacy, to get more and more countries behind us. For example, the last European championship were in Varna, Bulgaria, which is not a common place for us. But since then they show up regularly at the tournaments.”
Beach handball is played in two sets of ten minutes. If you win both, you win the match. If each team wins one set, shootouts take place, again a spectacular concept. A team consists of five players, in the attack the goalie is always exchanged for a specialist, who always scores two points when he or she scores. There is always a surplus situation when a team goes forward: 5 attackers against 4 defenders and 1 keeper. Something that happens more in the final phase of an indoor handball match as well, when the keeper is exchanged for an extra field player. The two disciplines could learn from each other.
“We put a lot of effort in developing the sport,” says Pisani, tournament director of the European Championship. “We hope the federations and the clubs embrace our discipline. About 25 to 30 countries currently play beach handball, we should be able to expand that number, because the EHF has 50 active members.” The visibility and accessibility of the sport must contribute to this. The public can enter for free (or watch from the boulevard) and the event is broadcasted in 35 countries.
Nazaré is known for its meter-high waves, where surfers like to find their way. The rising cliff is impressive with a height of 318 meters, called the Sitio. But there is a possibility people also think of Nazaré as the beach handball city of Europe.
