Women's World Championship throws off in Scandinavia

Reigning world and European champions Norway are one of the three host nations and expectations will be high as they welcome teams and fans to Trondheim and Stavanger, having backed-up 2021 world success in Spain by taking gold in the Women's EHF EURO 2022 final in Ljubljana 12 months ago.

They will be in action at 20:30 CET tonight, taking on Greenland at DNB Arena in Stavanger for a group C clash.

Also in group C are South Korea and Austria, who face each other in one of the two curtain-raisers, at 18:00 CET. The other opening match sees Brazil meet Ukraine in group G.

Joining 2021 winners Norway as co-hosts are their Scandinavian neighbours Denmark and Sweden, who will both get their maiden outings in front of their home support on 1 December, when Denmark meet Serbia in Herning and Sweden are in Gothenburg to play China.

Expectations will also be high of Denmark and Sweden; the Danes were silver medallists at the Women's EHF EURO last year, while Sweden finished a credible fifth. 1997 world champions Denmark are joined in preliminary round group E by Romania and Chile. Croatia and Senegal will be Sweden's other two opponents in group A.

Frederikshavn in Denmark and Helsingborg in Sweden make up the six host cities for the event.

Montenegro know how much home advantage can be a factor, as they edged France to bronze in last year's EHF EURO, which they co-hosted. The Balkan nation have been drawn into group B where they will meet Cameroon on Thursday, before facing Hungary and Paraguay.

2017 champions France are in a tough group D alongside Slovenia, Angola and Iceland, while 2019 victors the Netherlands meet Argentina, Czechia and Congo in group H.

Germany, Spain, Hungary and Poland are the other EHF member nations present at the tournament, which has been won by a European team in 23 of the previous 25 editions.

One of those was 2013, when Brazil took gold. The South Americans were the best-performing non-European side two years ago when they reached the quarter-finals, and could well be again. South Korea and Japan both narrowly missed out on the top eight last time, and will have aims of going further.

Five nations, including Iceland, will be playing at the tournament for just the second time, but there will be no debutants this time.

The top three in each preliminary round group will advance to the main round, where 24 teams will be split into four groups of six. The top two in each main round group advances to the quarter-finals.

The semi-finals, bronze medal match and final (on 17 December 2023, 19:00 CET) will all be played at Jyske Bank Boxen, Herning, Denmark.

Photos © Jozo Cabraja / kolektiff