16TH WOMEN'S WORLD HANDBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

The stamp has been issued in a 20-stamp sheet, and the Croatian Post has also issued the First Day Cover (FDC). From the 1st to 14th December 2003, the 16th Women's World Handball Championship will be held in six Croatian towns. According to a number of indicants, this will be the greatest sports event in the independent Croatia. In the course of two weeks, the world's 24 best women's teams will play 86 games in Split, Poreč, Karlovac, Čakovec, Rijeka and Zagreb. Out of the 24 national teams participating in the championship, 14 teams come from Europe, three from Asia, three from Africa, three from the American continent and one from Oceania. The old continent will be represented by Croatia hosting the championship, followed by Russia that can boast of the current title of women world champions, then Denmark, Norway, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro, Romania, Spain and Ukraine. The three Asian teams come from Kazakhstan, Korea and China, while the African teams come from Angola, Côte d'Ivoire and Tunisia. Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina come from the American continent, and Oceania is represented by Australia.The organizers of the championship – the Croatian Handball Union – divided the teams into four preliminary groups: Split will thus host group «A» with the following teams: France, Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, Spain, Brazil, and Australia. «B» group will be hosted by Poreč with the teams of Russia, Czech Republic, Austria, Korea, Angola and Uruguay playing there. Karlovac will be the venue for the games of the teams of the «C» group: Norway. Romania, Japan, Ukraine, Tunisia and Argentina. In the «D» group in Čakovec, according to the round robin system, the last six teams to play are: Denmark, Hungary, Slovenia, Germany, China and Côte d'Ivoire. Three worst placed teams in each preliminary group will leave the competition, and the remaining teams will merge into two main groups. Following the system, three best placed teams from groups «A» and «B» will form a new group that is going to play in Zagreb, while Rijeka will host the second group consisting of the three best placed teams from groups «C» and «D». The teams participating in the main groups play only against their contestants from the merged group, and the scores won against the teams they have played in the preliminary groups will be added to their results in the main group. Competition for medals will be the most appealing events, but what is most important at the World championships is fighting for placement in the semi-finals, and winning the fifth position, because the five first-placed teams have the right to participate in the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004. Handball fans in Croatia believe that our women's team will be among them, because our men's team has secured that right after becoming world champions in Portugal. This victory followed the previous Olympic gold medal won in Atlanta in 1996. Our women's handball team cannot boast of such results, though Croatian women handballers, when playing for the former Yugoslav team used to win Olympic medals. So, for instance, the silver medal was won at the Moscow Olympics in 1980 by Katica Ileš, Mirjana Ognjenović, Ana Titlić and Biserka Višnjić. Four years later, at the Los Angeles Olympics, the golden medal was won by Mirjana Ognjenović, Jasna Ptujec and Biserka Višnjić, and their coach there was Josip Samarđija. On the other hand, the Croatian women handballers played their first game for the national team in Zagreb on June 18, 1991. They beat the national team of the United States of America 26 to 24, and their first official appearance took place in 1993, at the Mediterranean Games in France, when both the women's and men's teams won gold medals. Our clubs were more successful on the international scene, so Podravka in 1995 was the finalist in the women's handball European Cup, and in 1996 they again won the European Cup and the Supercup. The women handballers of the Lokomotiva club won the 1991 EHF Cup, and the women handballers from Osijek, lead by the then world's best pivot man Kaja Ileš and their coach Ante Kostelić won the Cup Winners' Cup. This is the reason that the 16th Women's World Handball Championship is exceptionally important for the Croatian women's handball and we expect from the Croatian selector and the team to win a medal. It is the selector of the Croatian national team, Željko Tomac, and the players that he had chosen, that is to say Sanela Knezović, Barbara Stančin, Ivana Jelčić, Ljerka Vresk, Nikica Pušić, Maja Zebić, Dijana Golubić, Marija Hodak, Antonela Pensa, Maja Mitrović, Svitlana Pasičnik, Tihana Škarić, Nataša Kolega, Klaudija Bubalo, Anđa Bilobrk, Renata Čuljak, Maida Arslanagić, Mateja Janeš and Marina Kevo – what we expect from them is their victory in front of the audiences at home, possibly a medal or, at least their first appearance under the Croatian flag at the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004.