 South Korea’s Gwon Han-na, left, takes a shot against Norway during their women’s handball semifinal in London,Thursday. / AP-Yonhap |
By Kang Seung-wooSouth Korea’s hopes to make the women’s handball final for the first time since 2004 were dashed Friday (KST), after falling 31-25 to Norway.
The eighth-ranked Korean team, led by head coach Kang Jae-won, entered the semifinal looking for revenge for defeat at the same stage four years ago but the squad, battling injuries to key players, never matched the Scandinavians who put in a fluid attacking performance.
Korea, which has collected six medals in the event at the Summer Games since 1984 including golds in 1988 and 1992, will take on Spain, which lost to Montenegro 27-26, in the bronze-medal match Sunday morning.
“We just had no chance at all today,” Kang said.
“No one on our team has played in such an arena as large and packed as this and I think the inexperience negatively affected us.”
Korea, which rallied from a three-goal second-half deficit to draw with Norway in a preliminary clash, was determined, but the Europeans played up to their top-billing as the reigning world and European as well as defending Olympic champions.
After taking a 1-0 lead through left back Sim Hae-in, Korea never had a chance to control the game, as Norway’s players found their groove early, scoring 13 times in the first 17 minutes to open up a six-goal advantage.
“It was a really good match from us, we were playing really fast handball,” said pivot Heidi Loke, who found the net eight times.
Korea trailed 16-15 on the back of an 8-3 run over an eight-minute stretch but finished the first half down 18-15 after being kept scoreless for the last five minutes.
After the break, Norway again increased its lead to six with goals from Karoline Dyhre Breivang, Linn Jorum Sulland and Loke midway through the second half and never looked back.
Korea, having already lost attackers Kim On-a and Jung Yu-ra to injury, suffered another blow, with Sim leaving early in the first half after apparently breaking her right wrist in a fall.
Despite the failure to reach the gold-medal match, Kang is still covetous of the bronze.
“A lot of our players cried in the locker room but I told them they had to forget about today fast,” he said.
“We have one more game to play. In the Olympics, there is a huge difference between third and fourth place.”
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