DENMARK COMPLETE THE TREBLE: European Champions Again!

Denmark’s national team are champions of Europe for the third time! After 2008 and 2012, the Danes have won gold again — their first European title with Nikolaj Jakobsen on the bench. After Lillehammer and Belgrade, Herning also witnessed golden Danish handball: in the final they defeated Germany 34:27 (18:16) to complete a historic “treble” — three straight major titles. The only team to achieve that “in one piece” before were France between 2008 and 2010.

A superb final was played in the famous Jyske Bank Boxen, where 15,000 fans pushed their handball heroes to break German resistance in the decisive final phase. Alfred Gislason’s team were not overly impressed by the atmosphere, nor burdened by the heavy defeat in the Olympic final in Lille (26:39). Led by Kester, they took the lead 6:5 in the 9th minute, were level late in the first half at 14:14, and again early in the second at 19:19 — but the pace of Denmark’s back line and their aggressive defense proved decisive over the final 15 minutes.

Andreas Wolff kept Germany in it for as long as he could, but he couldn’t be the only trump card — alongside Marko Grgic, who had an excellent shooting spell late on. Simon Pytlick scored eight, while Mathias Gidsel and Johan Hansen added seven each to lead the winners. For the silver medalists, Juri Knorr, Grgić and Rune Dahmke Golla scored five apiece.

Whatever hope Germany had left was extinguished in the 56th minute, when Jannik Kohlbacher received a red card at 31:27 and, after Justus Fischer, joined the stands as the second German sent off after Kessler (13th minute). Denmark then finished the match in euphoria with a 3:0 run…

Denmark ended the tournament with eight wins and one loss — the only defeat coming at the end of the preliminary round against Portugal.

Bronze went to Croatia — their 16th medal at major tournaments.