The 2012

European Women's Handball Championship The European Women's Handball Championship is the official competition for senior women's national handball teams of Europe, and takes place every two years. In addition to crowning the European champions, the tournament also serves as a qualifyi ...

was held in Serbia from 4 to 16 December. Originally the tournament was scheduled to be held in the Netherlands but on 4 June 2012 the Dutch Handball Federation withdrew from the organization. Subsequently, the European Handball Federation (EHF) launched a new bidding process and eventually selected Serbia as the new host on 18 June 2012. Montenegro captured their first title by defeating defending champion Norway 34–31 in the final.

Host selection

Initially on its meeting on 27 September 2008 the EHF awarded the championship to the Netherlands, beating the bids of Germany and Serbia. This could have been the second time for Netherlands to host the tournament, however, on 4 June 2012 the Dutch Handball Federation announced they are unable to organize the European Championship. A day later the EHF re-launched the host selection process; ten nations had shown interest in organizing the competition, including Croatia, Denmark, Iceland,

Macedonia Macedonia most commonly refers to: * North Macedonia, a country in southeastern Europe, known until 2019 as the Republic of Macedonia * Macedonia (ancient kingdom), a kingdom in Greek antiquity * Macedonia (Greece), a traditional geographic reg ...

, Norway, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia and Sweden. Romania added their interest the day after. On 18 June 2012 the EHF granted the organizational rights to Serbia and also disposed of the fate of the

Dutch national team Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

. Since Serbia, the new host already qualified for the European Championship, the place reserved for the host nation was passed to Iceland as the best non-qualified team and the Netherlands were pulled out from the tournament.

Venues

Five venues in four cities had been selected to host the matches:Spain and Serbia to stage 2013 World Championships
by International Handball Federation, 2 October 2010

Qualification

Qualification matches were played from September 2011 to June 2012. Following the new system introduced for the 2010 Men's Championship, all teams were included in the qualification round, except Netherlands who were hosts before the withdrawal. Teams were divided in 7 groups and the two top ranked teams from each group qualified.

Qualified teams

¹ Bold indicates champion for that year.

Squads

Referees

12 referee pairs were selected:

Seeding

The draw was scheduled to be held on 6 June 2012 at 14:00 local time in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The draw procedure was announced on 15 May. It was canceled because of the withdrawal of the Dutch Handball Federation. The draw was rescheduled to 22 June 2012 in Monaco. The pots were new assigned due to the removal of the Netherlands and the addition of Iceland.

Preliminary round

The draw was held on 22 June 2012. The playing schedule was released on 13 July.Match schedule
/ref> ''All times are local ( UTC+1).''

Group A

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Group B

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Group C

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Group D

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Main round

Group I

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Group II

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Knockout stage

Bracket

Semifinals

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Fifth place game

Third place game

Final

Final ranking and statistics

All-Star Team

Top goalscorers

Source
SportResult.com
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Top goalkeepers

Source
SportResult.com
/small>

References

External links

*
EHF Website
{{2013 World Women's Handball Championship qualification European Women's Handball Championship

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