The gold medal runs of Germany and Hungary in Saturday’s finals marked the end of the handball competitions at the EYOF 2022 in the Slovakian city of Banská Bystrica. Handball has been one of 10 sports at the festival, which was first held in 1991 and is the biggest multi-sport event for young athletes from 50 European countries.
For each gender, eight under-17 national teams were taking part: Slovakia as the host nations, plus seven of the top eight teams from the M19 EHF EURO 2021 in Croatia and W17 EHF EURO 2021 in Montenegro.
- Germany won the men’s competition following a dramatic final against Denmark: Simon Humlegaard levelled the score for Denmark (28:28) with 33 seconds left on the clock, but Tim Gömmel earned Germany the title by scoring a last-second winner: 29:28
- Felix Göttler for Germany and Frederik Bak for Denmark were the leading scorers in the final with eight goals each
- in the semi-finals, Germany easily defeated Croatia 37:19 – led by 15 goals from Tim Gömmel – while Denmark also had a comfortable win over Portugal: 32:24
- Portugal won bronze, defeating Croatia 28:24 in the third place match
- Germany’s Tim Gömmel was the competition’s top scorer, with 35 goals
- in the final of the women’s competition, Hungary built on a five-goal lead at half-time (14:9) to defeat Denmark 30:26
- Fanni Török was Hungary’s best scorer with six; Dicte Andersen scored seven times for Denmark – remarkably, all her goals came in the last 19 minutes of the final
- eight goals both from Fanni Horváth and Liza Pálmai helped Hungary beat Norway 36:33 in the semi-final; Denmark defeated Germany 26:25 in the other semi-final, also thanks to 10 goals from Astrid Lund, who became the competition’s top scorer with 39
- Norway defeated Germany 28:23 in the duel for the bronze medal
European Youth Olympic Festival 2022 final standings
Men:
Gold – Germany
Silver – Denmark
Bronze – Portugal
4th – Croatia
5th – Spain
6th – Iceland
7th – Slovakia
8th – Slovenia
Women:
Gold – Hungary
Silver – Denmark
Bronze – Norway
4th – Germany
5th – Croatia
6th – Montenegro
7th – Romania
8th – Slovakia
all photos © EYOF 2022 Banská Bystrica