Big guns Denmark and Spain romp at worlds

Denmark's left wing Magnus Landin Jacobsen (L) jumps to shoot and score during the 25th IH
AFP

Paris (AFP) – Spain, Denmark and Croatia all won their second pool matches at the World Handball Championships on Saturday while Poland, bronze medallists last time out, suffered a damaging 28-24 defeat to Brazil.

Olympic champions Denmark romped past Egypt 35-28 in Group D after the Africans had started their tournament brightly beating Qatar on Friday.

Casper Mortensen and Lasse Svan Hansen scored five and six times respectively in the first-half giving the Danes a 21-15 lead by the break and 12 of their 14 outfield players had scored by full time.

“For us, it was a great game. We won with a lot of goals, but it was a hard match. Egypt played very well and played a very hard defence also,” said Denmark coach Morten Olsen.

“Against Sweden, it will be a special game. It’s always special against Sweden, we also want to be the best in Scandinavia, so we will try in two days to win against them.”

Spain and Croatia both had a tighter time of it.

The Iberians were leading Tunisia by just two points with ten minutes to go in their Group B game but thanks to David Balaguer’s three late goals they eventually prevailed 26-21. 

The Spaniards now have four points and are level with Slovenia, who edged Iceland 26-25. 

“In the second half, we had to stay concentrated as Tunisia never gave up. Our goalkeeper stopped many shots and we could then go a lot on the counter-attack,” said Spain’s Valero Rivera.

Hungary were missing their star player Laszlo Nagy with an ankle injury but still ran Croatia close over the first 45 minutes before a late flurry gave the Croats a 31-28 win, leaving them sole leaders of Group C ahead of Chile and Germany.

In Group A, Norway also had a second win beating Russia 28-24 after their 22-year-old ‘keeper Torbjorn Bergerud actually scored and with 14 saves won the man of the match award.

The hosts and defending champions France had pulverised Brazil in their opener with a one-sided 31-16 win, but the Latin Americans redeemed themselves Saturday with a win over Poland, who will now struggle to qualify for the next round.

Macedonia beat Angola 31-22 in Group B and look well set to make the cut for the latter stages of the tournament.

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