16 youth teams seek glory at EYOF in Maribor
The handball competitions of the European Youth Olympic Festival (EYOF) 2023 in Maribor, Slovenia throw off on Monday 24 July, with the finals scheduled for Saturday 29 July. Both the men’s and the women’s event consist of eight under-17 teams.
The 16 teams represent 14 different European countries, with Norway and hosts Slovenia the only two nations taking part in both competitions.
The teams earned their places based on their performances at the Women’s 16 European Open 2022 and the Men’s 18 EHF EURO 2022. All players at EYOF 2023 are born in 2006 or 2007.
The full lineup is as follows:
- group A: Spain, France, Netherlands, Czech Republic
- group B: Romania, Norway, Poland, Slovenia
- group A: Hungary, Croatia, Portugal, Montenegro
- group B: Germany, Norway, Iceland, Slovenia
The group matches are scheduled from Monday through Wednesday. The top two teams from each group qualify for the semi-finals on Friday, with the winners advancing to the finals on Saturday (women's and men's final both scheduled for 14:00 CEST). Placement matches are scheduled on Friday and Saturday.
Both competitions take place in Maribor, but at different venues: the women play at the Športni center Leona Štuklja, the men at the Športna dvorana Vrbanska.
The full schedule and live streaming are available on the official event website; live scoring can be followed on eurohandball.com.
Handball is one of 11 sports contested at the 17th edition of the EYOF, a multisport event for athletes aged between 14 and 18. In total, the event features 3,600 athletes from 48 countries.
The EYOF takes place once every two years. However, the 2021 edition in Slovakia was postponed for a year amid the coronavirus pandemic; in 2022, Germany won the men’s and Hungary the women’s handball event, with Denmark finishing runners-up in both competitions.
More recently, four teams playing in Maribor this week also took part in the M17 European Open 2023 in Gothenburg, Sweden, two weeks ago: Iceland, Croatia, Portugal, and Norway – though none of those teams made it to the semi-finals there.
photo © 2023 Emelie Hübner
