Tag Archives: handball

World Class Sport in Sonderborg

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This past week has offered a super bonanza of top notch sort to visitors and residents of Sonderborg.

U19 European Handball Championship (Women)

Denmark is a country crazy about handball. In fact, this tournament has been won 3 times out of the 17 it has been organised by the Danish team. Therefore, Denmark, specifically Sonderborg & Kolding, was considered a fitting location for the 2013 edition.

The tournament started last Thursday (1st of August). At a cost of 50 DKK for a whole day of games, popping in to see a couple of goals from the European stars of the future is well worth it! Games in Sonderborg end on the 10th of August with the 16-10th placement games. When we visited there was quite a lot of space available, so just drop in and enjoy the atmosphere and the playmanship.

World Championship – Europe class Sailing

Considering the lovely weather we have been having, enjoying the outdoors may be of interest. In that case, Sonderborg has been hosting the world championships for the Europe class dinghy since the 29th of July. The boats leave from the Sonderborg marina, from where you can watch the sailors in action out on the water.

As with the handball championship, this championship will come to an end next weekend, with the final races occurring on Saturday 10th August.

Post Danmark Rundt

Post Danmark rundt is a Danish stage race for professional bicycle racers. Followed by around half of Danes, this is a well-known race that hits the spot in this cycling crazy country. This year, 2nd stage ended and the 3rd stage started in Sonderborg.

We went along to watch the finish of the second stage. The race ended by 3 circuits into Sonderborg, up over the bridge and towards Dybbol Molle. This meant that as spectators we got to see the riders pass by four times. This – together with spotting Mark Cavendish – made the wait well worth it!

The six stages of the race came to an end today in Frederiksberg. Mark Cavendish did win this last leg, but the overall winner was Wilco Kelderman.

Women’s Handball

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When the national team in football is doing badly Denmark’s favorite spectator sport is handball. Especially if the team is doing well as in 2011 when 3 million Danes (60% of total pop.) watched the European Championship finale. Danes will say that the sport is invented in Denmark but that’s not completely true. In any case it is today the third most played sport with 119,000 players nationwide, only surpassed by football and badminton.

This weekend we were again lucky to get our hands on tickets to a match by the local professional sports team. Last time it was the men’s football team in freezing Haderslev we went to see, this weekend it was women’s handball in Aabenraa.

The local team, SønderjyskE has been playing in the 1st Division in the last season and the game we went to see was in the qualifying round to make it into the best league Håndboldligaen. (The handball league system is quite complicated.) The team they were playing were Aalborg DH, a team that is pretty good and beat SønderjyskE last time they met.

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After presenting an oversized team jersey and raising it on the back wall the players ran onto the court and the game began.

We had good seats from where we could see the whole court and like a tennis match watch as the game went from one end to the other in fast pace.

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SønderjyskE got ahead from the start so that ensured a good atmosphere in the arena. Every time there was a goal or another short break in the game the sound system would boom with schlager music like Lost Souls and Tørfisk.

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The local team stayed ahead throughout the game and at one point had a 12 goal lead before they let off their best players and slacked a bit. The end result was a comfortable 35-29 victory to the home team and they are well on the way in the qualifying round.

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I’m surprised how much I enjoyed both this game and the last football game, because I’m not really into watching sport except when there are the big tournaments. If I were to compare the two experiences I’ve had watching the local pro football and handball I prefer the handball. The game is faster (both on court and total time at event), it’s indoors, the arena is closer and the beers are cheaper.