Unified Korea men’s handball team keep rivals guessing at world champs

BERLIN: After a unified Korean women’s ice-hockey team became a feature of last year’s Winter Olympics, a men’s team of North and South Korean players is an unknown factor for Thursday’s opening game of the world handball championships.

A unified Korean team, with four players from the North added to the 16-strong squad of South Korea players, face Germany, the co-hosts alongside Denmark, when the 2019 World Men’s Handball Championships opens in Berlin on Thursday (today).

The unified Korean women’s ice hockey team was a colourful attraction at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics despite losing all their games and finishing last.

Likewise, the men’s handball team is not expected to survive the group stages at the 2019 finals, contested by 24 teams.

This will be Korea’s debut at a men’s world championships and the opening match is a 14,500-seater sell-out in Berlin with millions expected to tune in on television with Germany, a handball powerhouse, among the favourites to win a fourth world title.

“This game is steeped in history and will bring a lot of attention to our sport,” beamed Bob Hanning, vice-president of the German Handball Association (DHB).The Koreans have been granted special permission by the International Handball Federation (IHF) to compete and they are the only team allowed to have 20 in their squad, four more than their rivals.

The idea is the brainchild of IHF president Hassan Moustafa, who invited a unified Korean team after South Korea qualified for the world championships by finishing third at the Asian Cup.

The full Korean team first set eyes on each other just before Christmas on 22 December in Berlin.“At the first meeting, we were a bit out of touch with one another”, admitted team captain Jung Su-young, but his North Korean team-mate Ri Song Jin said the ice was broken at an evening team-building event, “since then we are connected by friendship”.

At least one North Korean player will feature in each of their five preliminary round games.The Koreans are in Group A, alongside reigning world champions France and European powerhouses Russia, Germany and Serbia.

The team will play under the blue and white flag showing a unified Korea and are an unknown factor for the Germans, who had problems getting video footage of the North Koreans to analyse.