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Friday, September 29
Denmark reaches final but Norway slides
Reuters
SYDNEY, Australia -- Defending champions Denmark
downed South Korea to reach the women's Olympic handball final
on Friday but neighbors and world champions Norway were
crushed by Hungary in the biggest upset of the tournament.
In the earlier men's semifinals, Scandinavia's other great
medal hope Sweden swept past Spain 32-25 to reach their third
consecutive final while Russia weathered a bad-tempered match
to beat Yugoslavia 30-26.
The Danes won 31-29 to prevent South Korea reaching their
fifth women's Olympic final in a row while the Hungarians
stunned Norway with a 28-23 victory.
Denmark, who beat South Korea in a dramatic extra-time
women's final at Atlanta four years ago, had expected another
tough tie against the Asians, who were unbeaten in Sydney.
But roared on by thousands of fans with their ubiquitous
viking helmets, face paint and red and white flags, they
established an early six-point lead and comfortably survived a
Korean revival in the second half.
"Before we left Denmark, I felt we could finish somewhere
around fifth to third place but we've got better with every
match and today we were just about perfect," Danish coach Jan
Pytlick said.
Hungary had needed extra time to squeeze past Austria in
the quarterfinals but were unstoppable in the last four.
The Norwegians had no answer to the height and strength of
their backs Agnes Farkas and Bojana Radulovic, who topped their
scoring with six and 10 goals respectively.
Blue blood
The entire Swedish royal family turned out earlier to watch
their men in action against Spain in a tournament, which has had
its fair share of blue-blooded visitors.
Denmark's Crown Prince Frederick was here on Friday while
Spain's Queen Sofia and Princess Cristina were in the stands on
Saturday to watch Cristina's husband Inaki Urdangarin, Duke of
Palma de Mallorca and captain of the Spanish squad.
But it was the Swedes who ruled the court.
They led 15-10 at halftime and extended their lead with
minimum fuss in the second half.
"They were clearly better than us today," Spanish coach
Juan de Dios Roman Seco acknowledged. "Sweden are the best team
in the world when it comes to many things, but particularly
attack and counter-attack. I congratulate them."
Russia's match with Yugoslavia was a torrid affair.
The Czech referees handed out 13 two-minute suspensions and
Yugoslavia had back-court player Nedeljko Jovanovic sent off
six minutes from time.
His teammate Igor Butujila continued his verbal assault of
the referees for several minutes after the final hooter.
"I've had very negative experiences with these two referees
before and I didn't think they were the right pairing to
oversee a high-profile game like this," Yugoslav coach Veselin
Vujovic said.
Russia had two players sent to the sin-bin just before
halftime and, with only four outfield players left on court,
conceded five goals in a row to trail 14-15 at the interval.
But they crept back in front at 17-16 and stayed there
until the end, Edouard Kokcharov top-scoring with nine goals.
Russian defender Igor Lavrov injured a foot in a clash with
his marker in the dying minutes and was taken on a stretcher from
the court. He will miss Saturday's final.
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