The Swiss women's national team will take part in the World Handball Championship for the first time on Thursday. It is a logical step.
27.11.2025, 04:31
27.11.2025, 07:03
SDA
The Swiss Handball Federation has invested a lot in women's handball in recent years - in terms of personnel, content and funding. Since 2020, there has been an academy for players aged between 14 and 20 at the OYM competence center in Cham. In addition, a development squad was created to promote even more young talent professionally. This was possible because the SHV is one of five national sports associations to receive additional financial support for women's competitive sport from the "Sportförderung Schweiz/Swiss Olympic" foundation over three years.
The "starch gmacht" campaign was also recently launched with the aim of exploiting the full potential of women's handball in Switzerland. One of the goals is to increase the number of female licenses from around 7,000 to 10,000. In the long term, the Swiss women want to establish themselves in the top 10 in Europe - the dream is to take part in the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane.
The Swiss women's development shows that the investments are paying off. At the end of 2022, they took part in the European Championship finals for the first time. Norwegian coach Knut Ove Joa's team qualified for the main round at last year's European Championships, which were held in Basel and elsewhere. Now the World Cup premiere awaits.
Two beatable opponents
The Swiss women face Iran (Thursday), Senegal (Saturday) and Hungary (Monday) in Group B of the preliminary round in 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. The top three teams in each of the eight groups advance to the main round. The Swiss have never played against Iran and Senegal - both should be beatable opponents. A win against Hungary would be a first. The Eastern Europeans were already opponents in their European Championship debut. Back then they lost 28:33.
The 18-strong Swiss squad includes eleven players who are active in the top leagues in Denmark, Germany, France, Norway, Sweden and Romania - another clear sign of the progress of women's handball in this country. Despite being only 22 years old, Tabea Schmid is already one of the world's best circle players.
Lessons learned from defeat
The final preparation took place in Schaffhausen. The Swiss also played two test matches against co-hosts Germany, who have finished in the top 8 at the last three World Championships. In the first duel in St. Gallen, the Swiss lost 17:35 after the score was only 12:13 at the break. They learned their lesson from this and put up a good fight in the second encounter in Göppingen (32:35). The team looks ready for its first World Cup adventure.
The top favorites are the Norwegians, who are aiming for their fifth World Championship title after winning their third Olympic gold medal in Paris last year.
