The 11th Beach Handball Men’s and Women’s World Championship starts this Tuesday, June 18 on the island of Pingtan in the People’s Republic of China. The representatives of South America are in search of the podium, Argentina, Brazil (in both branches) and Uruguay in men, after a journey of more than 12 hours the Argentinean teams arrived at their destination.
The women’s team led by Leticia Brunati had several days of preparation at the CeNARD facilities in the city of Buenos Aires, of course the weather at times was not the best for the development of this discipline, but that is no excuse. In addition, the two tournaments in which they were present were also preparations for the World Cup. Argentina won the silver medal at the Sur Centro in April in Asunción and at the Global Tour in May in Maricá.
The Kamikases who traveled are: Florencia Berilio (Arq), Fiorella Corimberto, Agustina Mirotta (Lat), Lucila Balsas, Carolina Ponce (Esp), Giselda Bonomi, Zoe Turnes (Piv) and Alma Molina, Micaela Corimberto and Luciana Scordamaglia (Def).
“It is a year where we have been able to have more previous competitions before a World Championship, for many of us it is the first and for others the second. Competing will allow us to evaluate everything we have been training, have a good main round and reach the semifinals, to be at the top of the ranking is the main objective”, said Gisella Bonomi.
Regarding the Group’s rivals, he assured that they have met Croatia in the youth category, but this will be the first time they meet in the senior category, “… they play fast, a lot of spin, European style; Vietnam is very strong, we played in the World Games in Qatar in the quarterfinals and lost by shoot out to them, they have very good ball speed…” and from Spain he said that they know some of the players because they have shared a club but have never played against each other, said Bonomi and added: “It has been one of the longest and most dedicated processes we had, at a physical and tactical level, the most complete and that allows us to have many new tools and resources to be able to adapt to any circumstance.”
The men’s national team also had its preparation at the Centro de Alto Rendimiento Deportivo in the city of Buenos Aires. The team coached by Sebastián Ferraro was able to integrate three generations with many stimuli during the training stage.
“Working a lot on the definition was something we had pending after our participation in the Global Tour. We struggled to close the sets, I think that being a young team with lack of experience we were struggling in the final minutes of the matches and that is what we worked on in this stage of training.”said Ferraro. In addition, he stated that the objective is to be in the main round and to take points to be able to advance to the next stage.
The men’s team that will be in China is: Nicolás Vella (Arq), Francisco Arturo, Agustín Oller, Joaquín Mauch (Lat), Lucas Coronel (Esp), Giovanni Brunetta (Piv) and Francisco Müller, Santiago Vidondo, Nicolás Millet and Joaquín Guillamón (Def).
In the women’s division, Argentina is in Group B along with Spain, Vietnam and Croatia. On June 18 they play against Croatia, on June 19 they face Vietnam and in the closing match against Spain. In the men’s division, Argentina shares Group C with Portugal, Croatia and Puerto Rico; on the 18th they face Puerto Rico, on the 19th Portugal and close against Croatia.
Photos: CoSCABal/Camilo Rotela.
