History of M19 IHF World Championships

First world championship for handball players that are 19 years old or younger was organized 18 years ago. Qatar was the host and ten teams participated. World Championship title went to Serbia and Montenegro (at that time it was one country). Since then and until today, seven more championships were organized. Two years ago, this competition was supposed to be organized in Greece, but because od COVID-19 pandemic, it was cancelled. This World Championship, that Croatia will host in less then a month, is tenth M19 IHF World Championship in total.

The most successful country in the history of this competition is Denmark. Young handball players from this country won this competition three times. In 2007, 2011 and in 2013. And they have two bronze medals as well. France won this competition two times. Next to Denmark, country with most medals from M19 World Championships is this years host, Croatia. Handball players from Croatia won four medals in total. One gold medal in 2009, two silver medals in 2007 and in 2013 and one bronze medal in 2005. In other words, Croatia is the only country that has all three medals from this competition. One world champions title belongs to Serbia and Montenegro and one to Egypt, who is defending their title from 2019. In total, 11 countries won medals on M19 World Championships during these 18 years.

Record holders for participating on these competitions are Croatia, Denmark, Egypt and Argentina. They played on every M19 World Championship since the beginning. In other words, they were on eight world championships and this will be their ninth.

In the first world championship in Qatar in 2005, 10 countries participated. Two years later there were 16 countries. After that, in Tunisia in 2009 and in Argentina in 2011, 20 countries participated. From 2013 to 2019 that number was on 24 countries. In accordance with International Handball Federations politics about expansion and popularization of handball in the world, Croatia will be the first country to host M19 World Championship with 32 teams. So, this year there are six debutantes – Burundi, Czech Republic, Faroe Islands, Montenegro, Rwanda and USA.

In the last M19 World Championship that was held in 2019 in North Macedonia, Egypt was the winner, Germany was second and Denmark was third. Portugal ended in the fourth place. MVP of the Championship was Ahmed Hesham form Egypt and the top goal scorer was Hassan Kaddah also from Egypt. He scored 51 time. Who will be their successor in Croatia? We will see very soon.