The showcase sees beach handball presented on the senior Olympic stage for the first time, after being part of the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics. The discipline has also been featured at The World Games — a multi-sport event recognised and supported by the IOC for sports not in the Olympic Games — six times. The hope is that beach handball will become an official sport on the Olympic programme in the future.
“Beach Handball deserves, for many reasons, to be a part of the Olympics. The game is super entertaining, really fast and interesting for people to watch. It’s a game with spectacular saves, blocks from defenders and also goals from spin shots and in-flights that will make people eager to see more,” says co-host of the official EHF podcast, The Spin, Martin Vilstrup Andersen, who is among those selected to take part in the showcase. Vilstrup has a collection of medals won with Denmark, including the Beach Handball EURO title in 2019 and 2021, silver at the 2022 and 2024 Beach Handball World Championships, and bronze at the EURO 2023.
“It’s also a sport that is represented all over the world, and each continent has countries that are super competitive. It’s in many ways a unique sport, and everyone trying the sport will be welcomed with open arms.”
Spaniard Asunción Batista, MVP of the 2022 Beach Handball World Championship where her side won the silver medal, will also take to the sand in Paris.
“I really hope that this sport becomes Olympic. It is a dynamic and very spectacular sport that is not like any other. We have fair play as our flag — something that is an example for the entire world of how a sport should be cared for and respected,” says Batista, who won the world title in 2016 and has taken three bronze medals at the Beach EURO, in 2023, 2021 and 2017.