I. Qatch World Championship
The Hungarian national team won the 1st Qatch World Championship undefeated after 2:0 win in the final against Serbia. The bronze medal was taken by the Russians, while Portugal came 4th.
At the 1st Qatch World Championship, 16 national teams from 3 continents participated in the tournament. In addition to Egypt and Pakistan, Russia, Romania, Portugal, Ukraine, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Greece, Cyprus, Croatia, Poland and Hungary showcased their skills in the competition.
In the group stage teams needed to win one set to conclude the match. Sunday’s semi-finals, the bronze medal match and the final were played for two winning sets.
In the 16-team event, the Hungarian team closed the group stage, and then also the main round with a 100% success rate. In the semi-final, the locals were facing the brilliant Portuguese team. The team of Hungary composed by Gábor Pálos, Tamás Zöldy and László Széles confidently won 2-0 and reached the final.
In the other semi-final, Serbia, a familiar opponent for Hungary from the main round, fought against Russia and won 2-0. At the end of three extremely tight sets in the bronze medal match, it was the Russians’ turn to celebrate.
After a slow start, the Hungarians soon found themselves in the finals and gradually took control of the game. The Serbs tried to put pressure on their opponent, but the hands of the players of Hungary did not shake and ascended the throne as the first world champions in the sport. The final result was 2:0 for Hungary.
“It feels really good to be a world champion. Moreover, we did not make it to the finals convinced that we had a shot at winning. There was not much of a difference between the teams today, as after a bad start of the match, we had to run after the result. After one of the Serbian advantages, we changed our defense and it paid off in the last set. We hope that this will also have a lot of pull in the promotion of the sport in Hungary. We are glad to have had so many spectators because we had the opportunity to play in a fantastic atmosphere. The organisation was also amazingly good, the venue design was creative, and so we are closing the weekend with a very good feeling,” added László Széles, a player of the world champion team.
The spectators could witness the win of the beach handball players as part of the gala match. The Indoor team was strengthened by Gergely Harsányi, 179-time national team player and 2-time Olympian and 4th-place winner Olympic handball player; Ádám Tóth, CYEB Budakalász national team right-wing player and Attila Vadkerti, 124-time national team player, Olympic 4th-place winner national team handball player, while their opponents included Bence Zakics, World Championship bronze medalist beach handball player, the Best Player of 2018, András John, World Championship silver medalist, multiple European Championship bronze medalist, World Games silver medalist, and All Star Team Member beach handball player and Péter Hajdú, World Champion bronze medalist and European Championship bronze medalist.
