Portugal win Women’s 17 EHF Championship – Lithuania

Klaipeda in Lithuania wrapped up its final day of competition in the Women’s 17 EHF Championship, as the hosts suffered a tight defeat against Portugal in the final. Turkey claimed bronze in the 3/4 Placement Match, beating Finland.

Final

Everything had been in place to make this a perfect tournament for the Lithuanians but they fell at the final hurdle in the last 30 minutes.

Leading 14:13 against the Portuguese at half-time, their opponents came back strongly in the second half, to outscore them by two in the half (12:10) and one overall to win 25:24.

Beatriz Fabiana Faria Sousa – the Portuguese goal machine – continued her production rate with nine goals in a performance that ensured her side would be playing in the Women's 17 and 19 EHF EURO events in 2019.

Bronze/Placement Match 3/4

Turkey came from behind to win bronze with their devastating strike duo of Beyzanur Turkyilmaz (9 goals) and Gulcan Tugel (8) serving up over half of the Turkish goals against a Finland team who had led by three at the break (13:10).

Ellen Norrgrann also scored nine in the game, but her haul was not enough to agonisingly miss out on a podium place as the Finns will be kicking themselves for missing five of their 10 seven-metre penalties awarded.

Placement Matches 5-10

Fifth place at Lithuania 2017 went to Belarus who beat neighbours Ukraine 27:17 (13:10) with Yana Chabrova and Palina Siniauskaya scoring five each for Belarus and Yana Borysevych scoring a handful for Ukraine.

In the 7/8 placement match, nine goals from Ramona Vesna Manojlovic were more than enough for Italy to defeat Great Britain 36:13. The tough Italian defence stood firm, restricting the British team to just six first-half goals and scoring 19 themselves.

Georgia beat Latvia 23:20 (11:10) to ensure they did not finish last in the competition, finishing ninth, despite Nino Shakhulovi being shown a red card in the 54th minute after receiving three two-minute suspensions. Latvia put up a fight, but with a restricted side of just 10 players available, and after conceding nine seven-metre penalties of which Georgia scored eight, it was a hard task for them to get back into the game.

FINAL RANKING

1. Portugal
2. Lithuania
3. Turkey
4. Finland
5. Belarus
6. Ukraine
7. Italy
8. Great Britain
9. Georgia
10. Latvia

Female best players and coaches recognised

At the initiative of the EHF Women’s Handball Board, all All-Star Team members received a special, personalised t-shirt from Salming Sports AB, the official outfitter of the EHF and EHF Marketing GmbH. The t-shirts contained a special message addressing the players as ‘Young Handball Ambassadors’ in recognition of their promotion of handball in their home countries and further afield.

The Women’s 17 EHF Championship in Lithuania saw two teams present coached by women and in recognition of this, the EHF Women’s Handball Board presented Darejan Geperidze (GEO) and Ljiljiana Ivaci (ITA) with a special, personalised hooded sweatshirt from Salming Sports AB, the official outfitter of the EHF and EHF Marketing GmbH.

The sweatshirts had a special logo with the logo ‘Handball is in my Heart’ attached, and all coaches received a special message to them as ‘Women’s Handball Ambassadors’ in recognition of their promotion of handball in their home countries and further afield.