By Sahr Morris Jnr
Sierra Leone Handball Association has been granted the hosting right to stage the African Zone II Beach Handball Championship.
The tournament has been scheduled for February 2024 in Freetown and it’s is expired to welcome seven Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Senegal and others.
Confirming the news, the President of SLHA, Alie Gibril Koroma said: “The Handball Association has been requested by the Confederation of African Handball to host the 8 Nation Zone II countries come February 2024 in the first edition of the Beach Handball training workshops and tournaments.”
Already the Handball boss is seeking support from the National Olympics Committee of Sierra Leone, the Ministry of Sports and the National Sports Authority.
Italian coach Simonetta Montagni began developing handball on the beach in 1980. As the discipline began to grow in popularity, coach Luciano Bartolini was asked to create the first set of rules for the game in 1990, making the fast-paced game fit within the existing beach volleyball court lines.
In 2000, beach handball became an official European Handball Federation (EHF) sport, and the first EHF Beach Handball European Championship was held that year in Gaeta, Italy. The sport was further developed with representatives of the International Handball Federation (IHF), and it began to reach a global audience.
In 2004, the first Beach Handball World Championship was held in Egypt, and the first IHF under-17 World Championships were held in Mauritius in 2017. There, Spain won the men’s event and Hungary claimed the women’s gold.
