Paris (AFP)

Manhandled for 30 minutes, the handball players of Paris SG took place on Sunday in the second half at Istres to win quietly 32 to 22, and thus sign a 16th victory in as many matches in the French championship.

With 32 points on the clock, Luka Karabatic's teammates are at the top of the Starligue.

They are eight points ahead of Montpellier, the first pursuer of the six-time defending French champions, who however played two games less than PSG.

The Parisians only returned to the locker room with a goal in advance (14-13), the fault of a failed attack against the goalkeepers of Istres, Arnaud Tabarand and Clément Gaudin.

"In the first half, there were good things, it's just that we ran into their goalkeeper a lot. We continued to be serious, we accelerated with ten minutes of strong time in the second half, which we allowed us to detach, "commented PSG captain Luka Karabatic after the meeting.

The Parisians will now tackle their last two matches of the group stage of the Champions League, Tuesday against the Norwegians Elverum and Thursday against Szeged.

The Hungarian club lost on the green carpet its Sunday match against Flensburg, the meeting having been canceled due to cases of Covid-19 within its workforce, casting doubt on the holding of the match in Coubertin.

The goal for PSG will be to get two wins and try to grab second place in the group.

Second of last season, Nantes snatched victory in the last five minutes from Ivry 25 to 24, after being led by five goals (18-13, 40th).

The "H" has 20 points after 14 matches played, and comes back to two points from 4th place occupied by Limoges (22 pts, 17 matches played).

Nantes will travel to Veszprem in Hungary on Wednesday for a last match of the C1 group stage without a sporting issue, because they are already guaranteed to finish in 6th place in their group.

The French handball championship season is disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with many matches postponed due to cases of Covid in the workforce.

Some teams have so far only been able to play 13 matches, while Matchday 18 ended on Sunday.

© 2021 AFP