Cairo (AFP)
Russia, which plays at the World Handball Championship in Egypt under the name of the Russian Handball Federation (RHF) after its exclusion from international competitions, surprised by dominating Slovenia (31-25) on Saturday, qualifying for the main round along with seven other nations.
Russia imitated Belarus, 32-24 winner of South Korea and with which they share the lead of Group H with 3 points.
Slovenia, which beat the Koreans on Thursday, is therefore also qualified since it has the particular advantage over the latter who are eliminated.
But as the points acquired against the other qualifiers are kept in the second round, it will absolutely have to beat Belarus on Monday or else it will almost drop out of the quarter-finals.
This will be the stake of the group G clash between Egypt and Sweden, also qualified after a second success in as many matches.
The host country impressed (38-19) against Macedonia of Kiril Lazarov, contained at 3 goals, and the Scandinavians dominated Chile (41-26).
The third ticket will therefore be played between players from the Balkans, last-minute guests after the Czech Republic's package for a Covid-19 outbreak, and the South Americans.
In groups E and F which will merge, France, superior to Austria (35-28), and Portugal, by beating Morocco (33-20), took only the controls and are sure to move on to the next round .
Like Germany, who learned in the early evening that their match on Sunday against Cape Verde was canceled due to 2 positive cases within the workforce of the Atlantic archipelago.
Officially, the match is not canceled to avoid a possible contamination on the German side but because the Cape Verdeans, massively affected by the coronavirus, arrived with only 11 players in Egypt and therefore only have 9 left, while the threshold to play is set at 10.
The first round will end on Tuesday and the main round will start on Wednesday.
© 2021 AFP