Home wins at the 30th Beach Handball Days
For two days, 40 teams battled for victory at the 30th Beach Handball Days in the Warnemünde Beach Arena, battling strong winds. The trophy went to a team from Rostock in both the women's and men's competitions. The women's team, "Rostocker Beach Club," dominated for the third consecutive year. In the men's competition, the Rostock team "Altherren Truppe" achieved their first victory.
The "Rostocker Beach Club" played with great confidence all the way to the final. "We won all our matches 2-0 until the final, which turned out to be quite exciting," said team member Nicole Beyer after the awards ceremony. The victory was decided in a penalty shootout, similar to a penalty shootout in football. The players from the "Rostocker Beach Club" attribute their third consecutive win to the fact that they are one of the few teams that play exclusively beach handball. Many others come from indoor handball. The women had to say their goodbyes immediately after the awards ceremony, as they now all live scattered across Germany and always enjoy using the beach handball tournament as an opportunity to reunite. Second place went to the "Elch Beaches" from the Rostock University Sports Association (HSG), who participated in the beach tournament for the first time and made it straight to the final.
The Rostock "veterans" team was overjoyed. "We've participated in the beach handball tournament five times already. Each time we narrowly missed out. Now we've finally fought hard for the victory and we're going to celebrate properly," said Kay Funke of HC Empor Rostock. He added that the conditions, with strong gusts of wind, were challenging, but had been worse at previous beach handball tournaments.
Organizer Johann Müller was also pleased: “The atmosphere was great again and the weather cooperated quite well, although setting up was a bit challenging in the strong wind. The cooperation with the tourism office also went very well again. We are already looking forward to next year.”
