What Is Olympic Handball and How Does it Work?

The Paris 2024 handball tournament takes place at the Paris Expo Porte de Versailles, and the latter stages – quarter-finals, semi-finals, bronze medal match, and final – will be at the Stade Pierre-Mauroy in Lille, home of Ligue 1 football team Lille OSC.

It’s an incredibly exciting sport which can trace its origins back to similar games played in Ancient Greece. In this indispensable handball Olympics guide, we’ll look at the sports origins, the rules, and the history of handball at the Olympics.

In one form or another, the idea of handball goes back a long way. Games where balls were thrown to one another were found to be depicted on ancient Greek amphorae and in stone carvings, and it’s believed they were played for exercise and perhaps as a community event. The Romans played a game called expulsim ludere where they would hit a ball against a wall with the palm or forearm (perhaps an early form of the playground game we call ‘fives’). In medieval France, games that were probably the precursor to modern-day handball were also played.

By the 1800s, handball became, and remains to this day, very popular in northern and eastern Europe and the game was codified in Germany and throughout Scandinavia. Holger Nielsen, a Danish schoolteacher, army lieutenant and 1896 Olympic medallist in fencing, wrote the first set of handball rules in 1906 and the original rules were modified throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

Today, handball is played by around 20 million people in 180 countries and territories around the world. It’s most popular in Europe, particularly the Balkan region, Scandinavia, France, Germany and Spain and indeed in some countries handball is second only to football in popularity and participation.

While it’s been a popular sport since the nineteenth century, in the Olympic Games, handball has been a bit stop-start. It first appeared at the 1936 Games in Berlin as outdoor field handball, and didn’t reappear until Helsinki 1952 where it was relegated to a demonstration sport. A single game took place between Sweden and Denmark on July 30, 1952 with the Swedes running out 19-11 winners.

After a wait of twenty years, handball at the Olympics has been a permanent fixture for men since Munich 1972 and for women since Montreal 1976.

Of the eighteen nations to have medalled in the men’s game, France are top of the tree with three gold, one silver and one bronze medal. In the women’s game, of the fifteen nations that have won medals, Denmark lead with three golds, although both South Korea (2G, 3S, 1B) and Norway (2G, 2S, 3B) have more medals overall.

Note: these statistics are correct to the end of the Olympic handball tournament at Tokyo 2020 and don’t take into account the medal haul at Paris 2024.

In both the men’s and women’s competitions at Paris 2024, the 12 competing nations are split into two groups of six.

Men | Group A – Spain, Croatia, Germany, Slovenia, Sweden, Japan
Men | Group B – Denmark, Norway, Hungary, France, Egypt, Argentina

Women | Group A – Norway, Germany, Slovenia, Sweden, Denmark, South Korea
Women | Group B – Hungary, Netherlands, Spain France, Brazil, Angola

In a round-robin format, each team plays all five opponents in their groups and it’s two points for a win, and one for a draw. The top four teams in each group progress to the quarter-finals where it becomes a straight knock-out competition.

If teams are level on points after the round-robin, the tiebreakers are applied in the following order: head-to-head points, head-to-head goal difference, head-to-head goals scored, overall goal difference, and overall goals scored​.

The two losing semi-finalists play off in the bronze medal match. The two winning semi-finalists play for the gold medal.

The Olympic rules are the same for all international and national handball games and the sport is governed by the IHF, the International Handball Federation. Like in football, each goal is worth one point and the team who scores the most goals at the end of the match is the winner.

The Playing Surface

A regulation handball court is 40 metres long and 20 metres wide. The goals are two metres high and three metres wide and there’s a semi-circular area in front of the goal, known as the zone or the crease, which has a maximum radius of six metres. Only the goalkeeper is allowed in the crease.

The Teams

In Olympic Games handball, like all forms of the sport, teams are made up of seven players with six outfield players and a goalkeeper.

The Ball

The size and weight of the ball differs slightly between the men’s and women’s game. In the men’s game, the ball must have a circumference of between 58 and 60 centimetres and weigh between 425 and 475 grams. In the women’s game, the ball must have a circumference of between 54 and 56 centimetres and weigh between 325 and 375 grams.

The Duration

The standard duration for games of handball at the Olympics is one hour, split into two halves of thirty minutes each with a fifteen-minute half time break. If at full-time the scores are tied, there can be a maximum of two, five-minute extra time periods with a one-minute break in between. If the teams still can’t be separated, the game goes to penalty throws.

In exactly the same way it happens in football, each team takes five penalties. If the shootout is level after five penalties each, the game goes to sudden death, and the first team to miss loses.

The most recent set of IHF rules were published in 2015. Similar to all team sports, the rules go into minute detail – the official IHF Rules of the Game stretches to over 80 pages – but in summary –

• When a player gets the ball, they can pass it to a teammate, retain possession, or shoot.
• Players can’t use their feet, except for the goalkeeper, but only inside the crease.
• When a player is holding the ball, they can take three steps for a maximum of three seconds, or they can dribble, similar to the way a basketball player dribbles.
• Aside from the defending goalkeeper, players can’t touch the floor inside the crease. However, if a player is attempting a jump shot, providing the ball is released before they touch the floor, they can land inside the crease without a penalty.
• The goalkeeper may not leave the crease when they are in possession of the ball, but can leave it at any other time
• There’s no limit to the number of substitutes that can be used, and they are rolling, meaning there doesn’t have to be a break in play for substitutes to be introduced.

We hope you enjoyed reading this handball Olympics guide and don’t forget, you can catch all the action from Paris 2024 on discovery+!