2013 World Men's Handball Championship

The 23rd  Men's World Handball Championship just wrapped up at Palau Sant Jordi in Barcelona. The championship was held in multiple cities in Spain. This was Spain's first time hosting the tournament. 24 teams enter the tournament. Six teams are put into four different groups for a preliminary round. The top four teams in each group make the knockout stage. The knockout stage is a regular single-elimination tournament with seedings based on performance in the group stage. Here are three things to remember about the 2013 World Men's Handball Championship.

The Final

Spain celebrate winning the Handball title
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The Men's World Handball Championship Final featured Denmark and the hosts, Spain. The road for Denmark started by going undefeated in group play, followed by knockout round wins against Tunisia, Hungary, and Croatia to make the finals. Spain lost one game in group play and defeated Serbia, Germany, and Slovenia for the opportunity to compete for the Gold Medal. The game started off close. After 19 minutes of play, Spain only held a one goal advantage over Denmark. For the rest of the match, Spain controlled the game. They went on a 26 to 11 run to end the game and run Denmark out of the building. The championship for Spain in their second, and their first since 2005. This is the second consecutive silver medal for Denmark. 

Top Performers

The All Star Team
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There were many players who performed at their highest level. Both teams in the final had two players on the 2013 World Men's Handball Championship All-Star Team. Keeper Niklas Landin and Right Wing Hans Lindberg represented Denmark on the team and Pivot Julen Aguinagalde and Left Back Alberto Entrerrios did the same for Spain. Also on the team, at Center Back Domagoj Duvnjak of Croatia, Right Back Laszlo Nagy of Hungary, and Left Wing is Timur Dibirov of Russia. The MVP of the tournament was Denmark's Left Back Mikkel Hanson. Hanson scored 22 goals, 20 assists, and eight steals. The top goal scorer of the tournament was Denmark's Anders Eggert. Aron Palmarsson of Iceland was the tourney's leader in assists with 35. Poland's Marcin Wichary was the leader in saves with 46.6%. 

The "Loser's" Bracket

The Australia national handball team
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A unique quality of the World Men's Handball Championship is that their are games for 23rd place, 21st place, 19th place, and 17 place games. To get to these placement games, the teams would have to go through a bracket. The last-place finishers of the Group Stage went to a bracket in hopes of being the 21st place team. The second-to-last team of the Group Stage go to another bracket to try to become the 17th place squad and the President's Cup.

In the 23rd place game, Australia went up against Chile. Australia has a history of losing at the championships. The Aussies have  only one win ever and have finished 24th at every World Championship except one. This year was no exception as Chile beat Australia 32-23. In the 21st place game, Montenegro lost to South Korea, 30-27. The 19th place game featured two Middle Eastern teams in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. In a shootout, Saudi Arabia defeated Qatar, 33-30. And, in the 17th place game, Algeria topped Argentina 29-23 to win the President's Cup.