People have been flinging orbs past each other for fun since ancient times, but it's long been thought that what's now known as handball originated in Germany in the 1890's. Raffballspiel was a method to help keep gymnasts fit, and the game is said to have developed from there. But recent research indicates that the sport likely came from a more northerly place. The lineage of modern rules seems to point straight back to a haandbold ruleset developed by a Danish multi-sport athlete who competed at the 1896 Athens Games, a man by the name of Holger Nielsen.
It would take Denmark nearly a century to climb to the top of the handball world, and its women's team made that glorious ascent. During the 1970's, when women's handball gained Olympic status, Denmark was registering lackluster performances at the world championships. Then the side vanished from the map for the entirety of the next decade. But in 1994, under the tutelage of head coach Ulrik Wilbek, the Danes broke through with a European Championship -- they were off to the Olympics for the first time.
Once in Atlanta, Wilbek's team proved very powerful. The team crushed the host Americans, then China and Hungary, in the preliminary round-robin. A 23-19 defensive battle with the Norwegians put the Danes in the gold medal game, where they met up with two-time defending Olympic champion South Korea, which had cruised through the early games by an average of nine goals.
As the gold medal match began, the heavily-favored Koreans raced out to a six-goal lead. But Denmark, poised and confident despite its lack of experience on the world stage, pulled back into a 29-29 tie before the 60 minutes of regulation were complete. In overtime, an exhausted South Korean team had no response when Heidi Astrup added three goals in a Danish scoring outburst -- Denmark scored eight goals to Korea's four, and won the gold.
The momentum continued, as the country won the 1997 world championship -- its first. Wilbek ceonceded the reins to to Jan Pytlick, who wasn't the only new face as the Danes prepared to defend their Olympic championship.
Two-thirds of the 2000 team did not appear in Atlanta, and Denmark struggled in its first Sydney preliminary, a 19-17 loss to Norway. But the next generation of Danish women's handballers quickly found their , and would rally from another six-goal deficit in the gold medal game to top Hungary for a second title.
Denmark struggled again between Olympic tournaments, finishing a distant 13th at the 2003 Worlds. But a European championship in 2002 clinched a spot for the 2004 Games -- France and Hungary were deemed the teams to beat in Athens.
Once the 2004 Games began, it was clear that only old foe South Korea were suitable competition for Denmark. The two teams fought to a 29-29 tie in the preliminaries, one of the rare times an Olympic handball match has ended in a draw. The deadlock was testament to the similar level of skill Denmark and South Korea possessed -- at the time, few had any idea how evenly matched they were.
In the gold medal final, attended by the Danish royal family, the two teams battled to a 14-14 halftime tie. At the end of regulation, it was 25-25 -- but in the medal round, play doesn't stop there. A 10-minute overtime period only produced four goals a side. And here, we'll pick it up late in the second overtime.
After the 38-36 shootout win, the core of the team began to dissipate. Christina Roslyng, Kristine Andersen, Line Daugaard and three-time Olympian Mette Vestergaard retired, citing exhaustion. The leading scorer, Katrine Fruelund (15 goals in the gold medal game), found herself fighting off injuries. With a team full of inexperienced players, Pytlick led Denmark to a second-place finish at the European Championships that December.
Pytlick left the team in 2005, but new coach Brian Lyngholm could not mold the new players into a working outfit. In December of 2006, Denmark was a disaster at the Euros, barely escaping the preliminary round and taking three straight losses to Sweden, Russia and Spain. The 14th-place finish spelled the end of an era -- the team would not qualify for the 2008 Olympics in China.
Lyngholm was forced out by a player revolt as 2007 began, and Pytlick returned to attempt to build a team for a run at a return to Olympic play by 2012.
But that isn't the end of Denmark's handball story, as far as Beijing is concerned. At the recently-completed 2008 men's European championship, the underdog Danes registered a stunning and unexpected win over 2004 gold Olympic medalist Croatia. The Danish men have not been to the Olympics since 1984, where they finished fourth in a boycott-depleted field, and -- unlike the women -- have never won a medal in handball.
So as Denmark's women's team prepares for an attempt at a second separate era of glory, the country pins its handball hopes on the men. The red-clads may find themselves lightly regarded in Beijing, but as the women's team showed three times, that shouldn't stop anybody.
(*Source: Mette's Handball Corner)
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