I don’t have the patience for nil-nil after 90 minutes. I need action. Not because my simple Midwestern brain can be entertained only by fast-moving things. But because I demand to see fire from competitive athletes, and contagious fits of passion throughout the stands. Handball has all of that. As well as public address announcers posing as David Guetta wannabes!
Before you dismiss this as one of those stories of an American yokel “discovering” a thing that’s already beloved around the globe, just realize that too many of us stateside have been living in handball darkness. We might think we’d own this sport if we played it — that discussion pops up almost every Olympics. But how can we dominate handball if we barely pay attention to it? Silly us. We could learn something from the rest of the world.
Through the preliminary rounds of the Olympics, there are men’s and women’s teams spanning from South America, to North Africa, to East Asia and Scandinavia. Their fan bases travel, too, carrying flags, delivering chants and livening up a convention center that’s been repurposed into an intimate arena. While still getting my bearings at the Olympics, I caught a glimpse of this magic on television — unsure why the Norwegian and Angolan women were trying to maim one another. I just had to check it out.
And there, in a south Paris neighborhood, I found my happy place.
The sport looks like some game we might have made up as kids during recess — that is, until the crybaby of the class can’t handle the physicality and goes to tell the teacher. Mere minutes into Sunday’s women’s match between Brazil and Hungary, I realized this sport is not for wimps.
“They play on Taraflex. I mean, what was it like when they played on hardwood?” Mike Mobley mused.
Mobley works in the University of Georgia sports department, but ever since the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, he has moonlighted as the liaison manager for Olympic Broadcasting Services at the handball venues. With his background in basketball, Mobley helped me understand the similar concepts: There’s a big player in the middle; offenses try to draw the defense in, then kick it to the wing for scoring chances.
Other than that, I still didn’t get the rules. But as I understand them: Players run up and down the court and can dribble the palm-sized ball only when they feel like it. (Actually, it’s after every third step.)
They use some kind of Spider-Man sticky stuff to be able to catch the ball, curl it in their hand, then launch heaters at the goalie’s head. (It’s just resin, and they’re aiming for a goal that’s three meters wide and two meters high.)
And also, defenders can straight up throw hands on any attacker trying to score. (No, not really. Too much contact will warrant a two-minute suspension for a player).
You can’t hurt your opponent, but you can drag, push, strike, tug and accidentally choke them. In soccer, a player will flop if he’s breathed on the wrong way. In handball, I watched a 6-foot woman patrolling the heart of Hungary’s defense horse-collar another player, lift her from the ground and pretty much take her lunch money.
Even when the game is free-flowing, it’s still physical. In the men’s match between France and Egypt, Dika Mem, the French’s best attacker, sped down for a one-man fast break and blasted a 67-mph shot past goalkeeper Mohamed Aly. The role of protecting the net seems like it should come with its own life insurance policy, but 44-year-old Norwegian keeper Katrine Lunde is playing in her fifth Olympics and isn’t backing down. After she stopped 11 of 20 shots in a win against South Korea, I asked Lunde to help me convert American masses.
“Us girls, we are smiling a lot. We are cheering for each other,” Lunde pitched, “and it’s also kind of brutal. So you have a good mix.”
Fans soak up the physicality. During their countries’ match, the Brazilian and Hungarian fans squished together on the grandstands, provided a constant wave of song and celebration. When “Seven Nation Army” blared through the arena, they started stomping their feet. The guy whose job was supposed to be just announcing the goals, turned into a DJ, screaming into the microphone to “Clap! Clap! Clap!” This crowd even made the wave look cool.
Then, just after Hungary won on a buzzer-beating goal, I couldn’t hear my own thoughts over the noise from fans. A man in a Hungary Handball Ultras shirt bounced up and down with his arms lifted. A woman named Nikoleta stood among her neighbors, weeping.
“I’m so happy! It’s beautiful,” she told me.
While many eyes have followed gymnastics, or swimming, or the USA men’s basketball team so far during these Olympics, I’ve been tucked inside this distant arena falling in love with handball. Some days, commuting more than 50 minutes just to take in my new favorite sport — even if Mobley might be the only one in there able to understand my Stetson Bennett takes. The second time I showed up, Mobley searched me out because he heard a Yankee was in the mixed zone.
“Put it this way,” he said. “I approached you because I haven’t seen a whole lot of American media here.”
For shame! Americans, with our misguided confidence that we can crush any sport, should be handball’s biggest fans. But for me, I truly took to this game because it is so foreign.
In this country where I can’t speak the language, and in this arena where I don’t know what’s happening all the time, I feel like I’ve packed only a paper cone cup to drink from this fire hydrant called the Olympics. It’s frustrating sometimes, even alarming, but I’m loving it.
This sport is the life lesson that’s reminding me how the world is bigger than my borders. And that it’s okay to feel small while learning something new. Most importantly, handball teaches me that when a problem arises, trying to attack down the middle — always use the horse collar.
