HANDBALL – The Dutch handball players, with Merel Freriks from Emmen, finished in sixth place at the European Championships in Austria, Hungary and Switzerland. The team of national coach Henrik Signell had to settle for that final ranking by narrowly losing to Sweden 33-32 in Vienna. Dione Housheer was the best shooter of the Dutch team with nine goals, Freriks scored eight times.
The end result is exactly the same as at the previous two European Championships. The handball players also finished sixth. At the previous European Championship of 2022 in Denmark, Sweden was also the winner in the duel for fifth and sixth place.
The Dutch started this European Championship strongly with victories over Iceland, Germany, Ukraine and Slovenia. This was followed by a hopeless defeat against Olympic champion and reigning European champion Norway. The team recovered with a win over Switzerland, but then lost the decisive game to Denmark to reach the semi-finals.
It is also the third European Championship in a row that the handball players do not win a medal. There was silver in 2016 and bronze in 2018.
The Netherlands and Sweden made it a goal-rich match with an equal score. However, the Netherlands’ sloppy loss of ball was noticeable. Just before halftime, the team gave up a two-goal lead: from 15-13 to 15-15 at halftime.
In the second half it seemed like shooting for both goals. In the first ten minutes, each attack scored a goal, but the score remained in balance: from 15-15 to 29-29. In the final phase, the Dutch team took another two-goal lead (31-29), but the inconsistently playing team was unable to push through and allowed Sweden to come back. Emma Filippa Lindqvist scored the 33rd and winning goal for the Scandinavian team.