A fresh playing Orange has the first group win at the Olympic Games. Despite a preparation full of setbacks, the Dutch handball players left little of the host country Japan (32-21) with their fast and creative play.
The world champion turned out to be vulnerable, in preparation for Tokyo. The team also had setbacks, with Estavana Polman and Delaila Amega dropping out with serious knee injuries. And Yvette Broch, who declined to participate anyway.
But the switch is over, it turned out after a furious opening phase of the Orange. With a very accurate Lois Abbingh and also a strong Tess Wester, who was no longer the undisputed number one in goal at her club Odense last season.
Four years ago still the same
And Japan is also not the least opponent in the group, from which four of the six countries go to the quarterfinals. At the World Cup in their own country, where the Netherlands took the title in 2019, Japan finished tenth. During the previous edition, the Netherlands only won after extra time, after 20-20 in regular time.
Now the team of coach Emmanuel Mayonnade had almost equaled that production at half time (18-10), only to walk further away in the second half to a very respectable score.
South Korea, Angola, Norway and Montenegro are successively the next opponents of the Orange in the group.
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