Handball star Lucie Kretzschmar: "Beach handball impresses with its charm"

Explain handball to the well-known father?

Lucie Marie Kretzschmar laughs: "I've been waiting for this for a long time." She is the "Beach handball player of the year 2022", she is the fresh world champion with the beach selection of the German Handball Association (DHB), and she starts with her colleagues this Monday at the World Games – for better or for worse, Stefan Kretzschmar has to let his 22-year-old daughter introduce him to the world of beach handball.

“Of course we exchange ideas with each other,” she says, “but I give the input.

I'll tell him what he didn't know."

And there are a few things that distinguish the indoor from the beach variant.

Not least the growth rates.

"Beach handball is a sleeping giant," says Lucie Kretzschmar, "the development is incredible, and in Germany the DHB has launched a super concept for young people.

Beach embodies a very special attitude to life that the spectators also want.”

Great growth potential

Summer, sun, wind and sea - the final victory over the Spaniards at the end of June on the beach of Heraklion, mixed with competitive sports, resulted in the best entertainment.

Especially compared to the last poor performance in the hall, the World Cup title was "historic", as the DHB cheered it on the social channels.

The potential for growth has not gone unnoticed.

The world association IHF would have liked to see its beach section in the Olympic program as early as 2024 - it failed.

Lucie Kretzschmar says: "Our sport is doing really well right now.

We hope to be there in Los Angeles in 2028.

Beach handball impresses with its charm.

We all go out with a smile.

The often dogged indoor handball can learn a lesson from that.”

Lucie Kretzschmar knows what she is talking about.

Living in Mannheim, the student teacher for English and German plays in the indoor Bundesliga, from the new season for the HSG Bensheim/Auerbach.

She doesn't want to play one off against the other, but says: "We can play Halle from September to May.

Then to August Beach.

I don't see any competition there.

The variants are different, and overall we make handball a year-round sport if we think of hall and beach together.”

The fact that players do both is exceptional at the highest level.

For the men, no national indoor player is seriously involved on the beach.

For the women, national goalkeeper Katharina Filter was also in goal in the sand and helped the DHB team to win over Spain.

The majority of national coach Alexander Novakovic's squad consists of players from the second and third leagues of indoor operations.

The federal performance center is in Ismaning, also because many players come from Bavaria.

The base system is currently being expanded, reports Lucie Kretzschmar.

In the sand, four attackers play against three defenders plus a goalkeeper.

Offensive and defensive change in blocks (Kretzschmar is a defender).

There is a goal area that must not be entered.

Spectacular goals, for example after a Kempa trick, receive two points.

Bouncing after three steps with the ball in hand is allowed, but this is more like putting the ball down on the sand.

"But the biggest change to indoor handball is contactless," says Lucie Kretzschmar, "there are hardly any fouls, no stopping." Anyone who still "reaches" (which definitely happens) gets a time penalty, but the team is allowed to fill up for crucial ones prevent shortfall situations.

There are hardly any serious injuries, she says - otherwise the indoor teams wouldn't even let their players go to the beach.

No stuffy halls

Lucie Kretzschmar explains: “In the hall you play with contact.

Beach is played with brains.

The experiences I gather in the hall also make me better at the beach.

In addition, I come out of the gym fit, get these components for the beach there.”

At the World Games in Birmingham in the state of Alabama, the Germans will initially play against Mexico, Vietnam and Norway.

As favorites?

Kretzschmar says: "The whole world sees us as favorites because we are world champions, but we are not.

Everything happens so quickly in beach handball.”

Regardless of results and placings, this sport offers you something completely different: “I am aware that we work in places that everyone wishes for – not in stuffy halls.

And of course you jump into the sea after the game.”

Her father, as a beach handball player, would definitely have done that too.

So all he can do is be proud of his daughter's work.

Whatever he does.