The 2021

IHF World Women's Handball Championship The IHF Women's Handball World Championship has been organized by the International Handball Federation since 1957. European teams have won every time except 1995 where South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is ...

, the 25th event by the

International Handball Federation The International Handball Federation (IHF) is the administrative and controlling body for handball and beach handball. IHF is responsible for the organisation of handball's major international tournaments, notably the IHF World Men's Handball C ...

, was held in

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

from 1 to 19 December 2021. On 18 October 2018, at a congress in

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Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

, the IHF announced that the World Championship would be expanded from 24 teams to 32 teams from 2021 onwards. The

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were the defending champions after winning for the first time in

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. However, they finished third in their main round group and failed to qualify for the quarterfinals. Norway defeated France to win their fourth title. Denmark captured the bronze medal by winning against Spain.

Bidding process

Spain and Hungary bid for the right to organise the 2021 Women's World Handball Championship. The

decided that the voting process would take place during the

2017 World Men's Handball Championship The 2017 IHF World Men's Handball Championship was the 25th event hosted by the International Handball Federation. The event was held in France from 11 to 29 January 2017. France, in a clean sweep, defended their title by defeating Norway 33–26 ...

. The Spanish bid included the following six host cities and venues: The President of the

Royal Spanish Handball Federation The Royal Spanish Handball Federation (, RFEBM) is the national handball association in Spain. It is a member of the European Handball Federation (EHF) and the International Handball Federation (IHF). The organisation is responsible for the indoor ...

confirmed that full support is granted by the

Olympic Movement The International Olympic Committee (IOC; , CIO) is the international, non-governmental, sports governing body of the modern Olympic Games. Founded in 1894 by Pierre de Coubertin and Demetrios Vikelas, it is based in L ...

Spanish government The government of Spain () is the central government which leads the executive branch and the General State Administration of the Kingdom of Spain. The Government consists of the Prime Minister and the Ministers; the prime minister has the o ...

and the handball community. The Spanish government guaranteed the introduction of all necessary measures so that the event could be celebrated in a full security setting, with special attention paid to key infrastructures for the staging of the competitions and to IHF operations, its subsidiaries and delegations from different countries. The Hungarian bid included the following six host cities and venues: The 2021 Women's World Handball Championship was awarded to Spain by a secret ballot of members of the

IHF Council The IHF Council is an institution of International Handball Federation (the governing body of handball and beach handball). It is the main decision-making body of the organization in the intervals of IHF Congress. Its members are elected by the I ...

Venues

The tournament is being played in the following venues:

Llíria Llíria (; ) is a medium-sized town off the CV35 motorway to the north of Valencia, Spain. Known as ''Edeta'' in ancient Iberian times, it is the musical capital of the region. On October 30, 2019, Llíria was declared a Creative City in the c ...

Torrevieja Torrevieja (; is a Mediterranean-seaside city and municipality on the Costa Blanca, in the province of Alicante, Valencian Community, in southeastern Spain. The city is in one of the only Spanish-speaking areas of the Valencian Community. Tor ...

, Castelló and

Granollers Granollers (; ) is a city in central Catalonia, about 30 kilometres north-east of Barcelona. It is the capital and most densely populated city in the comarca of Vallès Oriental. Granollers is now a bustling business centre, having grown from ...

as the final four venue.

Qualification

1. On 9 December 2019, the

World Anti-Doping Agency The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA; , AMA) is an international organization co-founded by the governments of over 140 nations along with the International Olympic Committee based in Canada to promote, coordinate, and monitor the fight against d ...

(WADA) banned Russia from all international sport for a period of four years, after the Russian government was found to have tampered with laboratory data that it provided to WADA in January 2019 as a condition of the

Russian Anti-Doping Agency The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA; ), established in January 2008, is the Russian National Anti-Doping Organisation (NADO), affiliated with (but suspended from, since 2015) the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). History It was established un ...

being reinstated. Russia later filed an appeal to the

Court of Arbitration for Sport The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS; , TAS) is an international body established in 1984 to settle disputes related to sport through arbitration. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland, and its courts are located in New York City, Sy ...

(CAS) against the WADA decision. After reviewing the case on appeal, CAS ruled on 17 December 2020 to reduce the penalty that WADA had placed on Russia. Instead of banning Russia from sporting events, the ruling allowed Russian sportspeople to participate at the Olympics and other international events, but for a period of two years, the team cannot use the Russian name, flag, or anthem and must present themselves as "Neutral Athlete" or "Neutral Team". The ruling does allow for team uniforms to display "Russia" on the uniform as well as the use of the Russian flag colors within the uniform's design, although the name should be up to equal predominance as the "Neutral Athlete/Team" designation. Like the men's team, the Russian women's team played under the alternative name of the sport's domestic governing body, the Russian Handball Federation. 2. Since 2018 countries from Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) are participating in the Asian Championships: if one of them finishes within the top five, it qualifies for the World Championship. Otherwise the place transfers to the wild card spot. 3. Since Oceania did not register a team for the upcoming Asian qualification event, the IHF Council awarded two Wild Cards for the 2021 IHF Women’s World Championship in Spain, namely to the National Federations of Slovakia and Poland. 4. As the 2021 Asian tournament was only played with 11 teams instead of 12, only five teams qualified and a wild card was granted to China.

Qualified teams

Draw

The draw took place on 12 August 2021 at 22:00 in Castellón, Spain.

Seeding

The seeding was announced on 8 August 2021. As organizer, Spain had the right to choose their group. The Asian, North and South American teams were not known at the time of the draw.

Referees

18 referee pairs were selected on 12 October 2021.

Squads

Each team consists of up to 18 players, of whom 16 may be fielded for each match.

Preliminary round

''All times are local (

UTC+1 +01:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +01:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2019-02-07T23:28:34+01:00. This time is used in: *Central European Time * West Africa Time * Western European Summer Time **Brit ...

).''

Group A

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Group B

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Group C

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Group D

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Group E

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Group F

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Group G

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Group H

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Presidents Cup

Group I

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Group II

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31st place game

29th place game

27th place game

25th place game

Main round

All points obtained in the preliminary round against teams that advanced as well, were carried over.

Group I

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Group II

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Group III

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Group IV

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Final round

Bracket

Quarterfinals

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Semifinals

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Third place game

Final

Final ranking and awards

Places 1 to 4 and 25 to 32 were decided by play-off or knock-out. The losers of the quarter finals were ranked 5th to 8th according to the places in the main round, points gained and goal difference. Teams finishing third in the main round were ranked 9th to 12th, teams finishing fourth in the main round were ranked 13th to 16th, teams finishing fifth in the main round were ranked 17th to 20th and teams ranked sixth were ranked 21st to 24th. In case of a tie in points gained, the goal difference of the main round was taken into account, then number of goals scored. If teams were still equal, number of points gained in the preliminary round were considered followed by the goal difference and then number of goals scored in the preliminary round.

All-Star team

The all-star team and MVP was announced on 19 December 2021.

Statistics

Top goalscorers

Top goalkeepers

Top assists

Top blocks

Notes

References

External links

*
IHF website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Handball, World Championship, Women, 2021

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

World Championship, 2021 World Championship, Women 2021 in Spanish women's sport

World Championship, 2021 December 2021 sports events in Spain