Olympic tournaments always bringing some surprising results, and first of them come in the evening programm of the Day 1, when Angola beat world’s bronze medalist from Denmark 2015 – Romania 23:19 (11:9). The African girls didn’t give the chance to Neagu and Co. to come in the lead during 60 minutes of battle at Future Arena! Only during the middle of the first half, Balkan team balanced results on 5:5 and 6:6, but that was far from enough to beat Angolians.
Angola made a great push towards victory at the start of the second half by making +5 – 16:11, and that was a real the end of Romanian hopes.
Cristina Neagu netted eight goals, Paula Ungureanu had 15 saves for Europeans, while Isabel Guialo scored five for the winners.
In two matches of Group A, Brazil beat Norway 31:28, while Spain outplayed Montenegro surprisingly easy – 25:19.
Sweden had really easy job against Argentina 31:21 (13:9). Gullden and other girls showed how much they are eager to prevent Rio experience from London’s fiasco. After 10 minutes it was 7:1 for Scandinavian girls, but Argentinians didn’t give up. Three minutes before the half-time break, South American squad came closer on 11:9.
However, that was all of serious thinking about miracle at the start of the tournament. The Swedish girls came into the second half strongly and fully concentrated until 23:14 in 44th minute, when everything was over.
Hagman netted six goals for the winners, Sand added five. Mendoza scored five for defeated team.
Russia beat Korea 30:25 and France won against Dutch girls 18:14.
PHOTO: IHF
