France conquer yet another throne

France have conquered a further handball throne. The country is already reigning European champions, World champions and Olympic champions at senior level in men's handball.

Earlier this summer, they won the Men's 21 World Championship and on Thursday they added the gold medal at the Men's U19 World Championship to their collection of titles.

In the final at the tournament in Ekaterinburg, Russia, Les Bleus left no doubt as they defeated Slovenia 33:26.

When Slovenia and France met in the match for the first place in Group D of the preliminary round of the championship, the match ended in a 32:32 draw, but this time, in the “DIVS” arena of Ekaterinburg, the game only looked like it could end in a draw for the first 12 minutes, when the teams took turns at leading by a single goal.

However, after France got the first two-goal lead at 7:5 after 12 minutes and 50 seconds, they never really looked back, but increased their lead to four goals before being three up, 16:13 at the half-time.

The French 5-1 defence was a constant challenge to the Slovenians, and so was the fast and fluent French attacking play at the opposite end of the court.

From the start of the second half, it did not take the French team long to decide the matter, as they increased the half time lead of 16:13 to 20:13 and soon after to 27:18.

A Slovenian change of a 6-0 defence to a more aggressive formation helped them a bit for a while, but they never created doubt about the result, as the closest they got was being five goals down at 28:23.

Towards the end, then, France were able to increase the lead to eight goals again, and even though they missed several open scoring opportunities, they were efficient enough to win by seven goals at the end, 33:26.

Before the final, Iceland took the bronze medal through a 26:22 against Spain in the match for the third place.

Europe dominated the rankings all the way down to the seventh place with Brazil being the best non-European team at the eighth place. Furthermore all players in the All-Star Team of the tournament come from European participants with Spain and France boasting the double representation.

Two sons of former handball legends made it to the star selection as Jackson Richardson's son Melvyn was awarded the Most Valuable Player of the championship and the best centre back, while Talant Dujshebaev's younger son Daniel was voted for the best left back.

Final ranking:

1. France
2. Slovenia
3. Iceland
4. Spain
5. Sweden
6. Norway
7. Denmark
8. Brazil
9. Switzerland
10. Hungary
11. Russian Federation
12. Serbia
13. Korea
14. Croatia
15. Egypt
16. Tunisia
17. Germany
18. Qatar
19. Poland
20. Japan
21. Argentina
22. Venezuela
23. Algeria
24. Chile

All-Star Team

Goalkeeper: Xoan LEDO MENENDEZ (ESP)
Left Wing: Tilen SOKOLIC (SLO)
Left Back: Daniel DUJSHEBAEV (ESP)
Line player: Ludovic FABREGAS (FRA)
Centre Back: Melvyn RICHARDSON (FRA)
Right Back: Blaz JANC (SLO)
Right Wing: Oeinn RIKHARDSSON (ISL)
 

Most Valuable Player: Melvyn RICHARDSON (FRA)
Top Scorer: Blaz JANC (SLO)