The Australian Handball Federation [AHF] is pleased to announce that Darryl McCormack will be one of the commentators of the handball games at the 2008 Olympics to be aired by SBS, in partnership with TV Channel 7. The commentary team will be calling the matches at the International Broadcasting Centre in Beijing.

Darryl, who is a formidable Right Back player, has been in the Australian Men’s Team for sixteen years.  He has represented Australia in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and in the World Championships held in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007.  He also has been based in Sweden playing in First Division League for the H65 club in Hoor. Having an extensive handball experience, Darryl certainly is very qualified to provide commentary on the games.

This will not be the first time that Darryl will be involved in commentating handball games.  He also did the commentary on handball games at the 2004 Olympics held in Athens, Greece. In 2004, Channel 7 in partnership with SBS, was looking for an expert handball commentator to cover some of the handball matches. The list of known handball commentators in Australia is not long, so the two networks went looking for Darryl. The TV networks had a bit of a tough time tracking Darryl down, but through contacts listed on the AHF website, they were able to obtain Darryl’s mobile number in Sweden.

Darryl received his roster of games last week and at this stage, subject to unpredictable changes, will be commentating on 15 of the 16 days of handball competitions. He will be calling games involving a good mixture of nationalities from both men’s and women’s competitions, as well as good coverage of the quarter, semi-final and final games.

The following is Darryl’s response to the question:  Who are your picks for the Gold Medals in Beijing?

On the women’s side it is hard to see anyone beating Russia.  They have totally dominated women’s handball since winning the World Championships on home soil in 2005, and then backed this up again at the end of last year at the 2007 World Championships in France. The size, strength, speed and skills of the Russians as a whole, and the fact that the majority of the national team play in the Russian league means that it is practically impossible to find a weakness in the team.  

The absence of the Danes in Beijing, after winning the Gold at the last 3 Olympics shows a real fall from the throne of the Danish national women’s team.  The only team to shake the Russian women in international competition over the past 3 years has been Norway, who played the game of their lives to defeat Russian in the final at the 2007 European Championships.  It was great to see Norway come away with the win so that Russia does not totally dominate women’s handball.

On the men’s side, the competition is wide open.  There’s Croatia, defending Olympic Champions, Germany, current World Champions, France, who have been favourites to win a number of international competitions in the past few years.  And then there are the Danish men, surprise winners at the European Championships earlier this year, with a very solid performance throughout the tournament and played an impressive final, beating the Croatian team.  We see more and more that the most successful teams are the ones that manage to keep their key players fresh by resting them throughout the tournament and by using their bench wisely.  If this point becomes a determining factor, then the Danish and German men would be the best to fare.  There is an absence of huge stars in their teams, rather the consistent and all-round strengths of all players in these teams means their coaches are much less reliant on having to continually use a few key players to perform and produce in all games throughout the tournament.  Living in Sweden, my hope would be for the Danes to get the title, but on sheer individual brilliance it’s hard to go past the likes of Balic, Karabatic, Abalu, Dzomba in the teams of France and Croatia.

The AHF is optimistic that the broadcast of so many handball games at the Olympics will not only benefit current handball players and fans but also encourage more youth to take up/follow the sport.  In addition, AHF is hopeful that it will also draw some interest from prospective sponsors.

[For schedule of the games, please refer to the Australian Handball Federation website:

http://www.handballaustralia.org.au/Latest%20News.htm#Darryl%20At%20The%20Olympics  ]

For further information, please contact the AHF Media & Public Relations Officer, Violi Calvert by email: [email protected]. 

The Australian Handball Federation [AHF] congratulates the Australian team which competed in the 19th World University Championships held during 5th – 13th July 2008 in Jesolo Beach, Italy.

The Australian Team reflected well on Australian handball and demonstrated the importance of participation and not just the results. Although the scores were not great, the Team impressed everyone with their passionate play. In fact, the Team was well regarded and considered the most popular team at the competition, by both the players and the volunteer staff.
[For results of all the Australian games, click here.

In addition to the fantastic support by the locals to the Australian Team, about thirty Australian backpackers who came to watch the Australian games against the Czech Republic and the Italians added their lively chants and cheering to boost the Team’s morale. The best result for the Australian’s was against Cyprus ( 19 – 33). At the completion of that game, Gilles Guillemin, the Australian Coach was congratulated for playing in fantastic spirit, and not giving up against stronger teams. It was widely regarded that the Australian Team was everybody’s favourite team.

The Manager of the Australian Team, Matt Walsh was given a role of ‘Technical Commissioner’ by the competition governing body FISU. The role of this commission is to represent the interests of all members of the competition by discussing player/official appeals and technical matters. The aim is to ensure the integrity of the refereeing, staff and the 19th World University Championships. The other members of the technical commission were Frantisek Taborsky (FISU), Adriano Ruocco (EHF), Claudio Morandin, Yasar Sevim (TUR), Grigori Guterman (LTU) & Djorde Lalosevic (SRB). In electing an Australian member to the Technical Commission, FISU felt this was an important and rare opportunity to have a player/manager and member of Oceania representing all members of the competition.

The AHF is hopeful that more Australian university handball groups will join in future world university championships.