Women’s World Championship 2011 Match Schedule

Between 02 to 18 December 2011 the XX Women’s World Championship will take place in Brazil. In total 24 teams, including them twelve nations from Europe, will go for gold.

Playing Modus

The Preliminary Round (2 to 9 December 2011) will be played in four groups with six teams each.

The four best-ranked teams of each group qualify for the Last 16, the other eight teams will meet in the President’s Cup (both 11/12 December).

The Last 16 is followed by Quarterfinals, Placement matches, Semi-finals and Final.

Preliminary Round Groups

Group A (Santos, Santos arena, capacity: 5,000)
Norway (European champions), Montenegro, Angola (African champions), Germany, China, Iceland

Group B (Barueri, Ginasio Jose Correa, capacity: 5,000)
Russia (defending champions), Kazakhstan (Asian champions), Netherland, Korea, Spain, Australia (Oceania champions)

Group C (Sao Paolo, Ginasio di Ibirapuera, capacity: 11,000)
Romania, France, Brazil (Pan-American champions, host), Tunisia, Cuba, Japan

Group D (Sao Bernardo do Campo, Ginasio Adid Moyses Dib, cap.: 7,000)
Sweden, Denmark, Croatia, Argentina, Côte d'Ivoire, Uruguay

Match Schedule

The match schedule has been confirmed and published. Download it HERE.

Playing venues

The Last 16 and the President’s Cup matches will be staged at the Preliminary Round venues.

From the Quarterfinals on (14 December), all matches will be played in Sao Paolo. This includes the semi-finals and placement matches (crucial for Olympic qualification) on 16 December and the final, the bronze final and the placement matches on 18 December.

Wide TV coverage expected

Sven Harke, the UFA Sports World Handball Championship Project Manager, expects to sell the TV rights to up to 100-120 countries – as it was the case at the last Women’s World Handball Championship held in China.

HD technology will be used to produce all matches with the help of 12 cameras at the hall as a standard.

Further Qualification

The World Championship will be an important step towards the Olympics 2012 in London. The winners will directly qualify for London, the teams ranked 2-7 will play for six tickets to the Olympics at three qualification tournaments, which will be staged on 25-27 May 2012. The teams ranked second to fourth are entitled to host these three tournaments.

The World Champions will also automatically qualify for the 2013 World Championship in Serbia as defending champions.

For further information visit the Official Website.