The British Olympic Association (BOA) has announced today the 14 male handball players that will represent Team GB at the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Handball made its Olympic debut in 1936, but has only been a regular fixture at the Games since 1972. Team GB has taken the opportunity to use the home nation allocation to enter their first ever handball teams and, following the announcement two weeks ago of their female counterparts, both the men and women’s squads are now selected to make their Olympic debuts in London.
The 14 athletes selected to Team GB today are (age, hometown):
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In addition to the 14 athletes, the British Handball Association have also named 20-year-old Nicholas Satchwell as their reserve, as well as another four backroom staff led by head coach Dragan Djukic.
The British Handball Association launched its performance programme in 2006, the year after the Games were awarded to London, as the English and Scottish associations combined to prepare teams ready for Olympic action.
The sport is relatively unfamiliar in Britain – but it has made great strides in catching up with its European neighbours during the past few years, with a Sport England survey last year showing almost a six-fold increase in participation in just three years. Presently, more men play handball than both rugby and hockey across Europe.
The rise in popularity of the sport across Britain has reflected the progress that the country’s elite have made on the international stage. The Team GB men have secured some notable results recently including defeating Italy and Bulgaria, and only narrowly missed out on a victory in April against handball powerhouse South Korea in London, as part of the Pinsent Masons’ Cup.
The squad will be under no illusions as to the difficulty of the task that lies ahead. Their first fixture is against reigning Olympic champions France, before meeting Sweden, Argentina, Tunisia and Beijing’s silver-medallists Iceland in their pool. Team GB will be aiming to produce competitive and credible performances across their fixtures, and targeting a few victories to earn a place in the top four of their pool to qualify for the knock-out stages.
The two pools of six nations will compete in a round robin format at the Copper Box in the Olympic Park. The four best placed countries in each pool will qualify for the knock-out stage, which will relocate to be contested at the Basketball Arena with the gold-medal match scheduled for August 12th, the final day of the London 2012 Games.
The addition of the men’s handball players brings the total number of athletes officially selected to compete for Team GB at London 2012 to 431 across 32 sport disciplines: archery, athletics – marathon, badminton, basketball, boxing, canoe slalom, canoe sprint, cycling, diving, equestrian – dressage, equestrian – eventing, equestrian – jumping, fencing, football – men, football – women, handball, hockey, judo, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, synchronised swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon, volleyball – beach, volleyball – indoor, water polo, weightlifting and wrestling.
Team GB Chef de Mission Andy Hunt said:
Head Coach Dragan Djukic said:
Mark Hawkins said:
Chris McDermott said: