Handball World Cup: Final victory against France - Denmark for the third time in a row world champion

Enlarge image

Denmark's Mathias Gidsel throwing a goal

Photo: Jan Woitas / dpa

In the final of the 2023 Handball World Championship, Denmark beat France 34:29 (16:15) in Stockholm.

It is the third world championship title for the Danes.

When the world champions of the past four tournaments met, Denmark, winners of 2019 and 2021, took a 3-0 lead from the start.

After less than seven minutes, France coach Guillaume Gille called the first time-out when the score was 2:6.

In a fast-paced game, it took until just before half-time for the French to catch up.

The first half ended with 16:15 for Denmark, Simon Pytlick (six goals) and Mathias Gidsel (four) together were responsible for almost two thirds of the Danish goals, superstar Mikkel Hansen, on the other hand, looked battered and didn't even throw in the direction of the opposing goalkeeper.

Shortly after the break, the French equalized for the first time (31st minute), but were already three goals behind after 37 minutes.

15 minutes before the end the game was still extremely exciting, the Danes benefited from some very good actions by Rasmus Lauge, who now got a lot of playing time for Hansen and converted ten (!) of his first eleven throws.

A goalkeeper change also paid off: Kevin Möller now stood in for Niklas Landin and got the French off their nerves with several saves.

Denmark led by four goals after 56 minutes.

The decision was made two minutes before the end: France missed a penalty at 29:32, Denmark scored in return.

Final score: 34:29.

mfu