Founded in 1938, the International Handball Federation (IHF) has been organizing major events for more than 85 years. It hosted the first-ever Men’s Handball World Championship in 1938 with just four European teams participating. As the sport has grown, so has the number of teams in the tournament, now held every two years. The field expanded from 16 to 24 teams in 1995 and 24 to 32 teams in 2021.
Twelve countries have won the IHF Men’s Handball Championship at least once, while France leads all nations with six gold medals and 13 in total. The 2025 tournament was held from January 14 to February 2 and featured first-time participants Guinea and the Netherlands. Here’s a look back at the 32-team event.
First Time with Three Hosts
For the first time, three countries shared hosting duties for the IHF Men’s Handball World Championship. Croatia, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, and Serbia all expressed interest in hosting the event, but the latter two countries withdrew their bid before the vote at the IHF Council meeting in Egypt in 2020. Poland and Sweden split hosting duties in 2023 and Denmark and Germany hosted in 2019. Every other event had just one host nation.
Norway was a first-time host, while Croatia and Denmark were hosting for the second and third time, respectively. Matches were played at five different venues, three of which were in the Croatian cities of Zagreb, Varaždin, and Poreč. The 15,000-seat Unity Arena in Bærum, Norway, and the 12,500-seat Jyske Bank Boxen in Herning, Denmark also hosted matches.
Denmark’s Dominance
Although they were in the inaugural IHF Men’s Handball World Championship, Denmark only won one medal (bronze) in the first 19 tournaments. They won their second bronze in 2007, won back-to-back silver medals in 2011 and 2013 and, with their win in 2025, became the first nation to win four consecutive gold medals. Denmark beat Norway, Sweden, and France in the gold medal in the prior three world championships and scored a 32-26 win over co-host Croatia in the gold medal game in 2025.
Denmark went a perfect 3-0 in preliminary play, finishing first in Group B ahead of Italy, Tunisia, and Algeria. They again finished first in their group in the main round, scoring victories over Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Tunisia, and Czech Republic. Denmark was never really challenged in the quarter- and semi-finals, beating Brazil and Portugal by 25 goals combined. They led for the entire game in the final against Croatia, scoring a 32-26 victory to win their fourth consecutive gold medal. Mathias Gidsel led the team with 10 goals in the match.
With its perfect record, Denmark hasn’t lost a match at the IHF Men’s Handball World Championship since 2017 in France. They broke the tournament record for average win margin (+13.4 goals) in 2025. Norway, the third co-host, finished 10th.
France Wins Bronze
France broke a tie with Sweden, winning its fifth bronze and 13th total medal to become the all-time leader in medals won at the IHF World Men’s Handball Championship. They won their preliminary round group with a perfect 3-0 record and advanced to the quarter-finals with a 5-0 record in the main round, scoring wins over Hungary, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, Austria, and Qatar.
France and Egypt played arguably the most intense match of the tournament in the quarter-finals, with France’s Luka Karabatic scoring the game-winning goal with 0.3 seconds left to give the six-time champions a 34-33 victory. Egypt trailed by five goals at one point in the second half and tied the game with three seconds left in regulation. This was the third consecutive quarter-final loss for Egypt in the IHF World Men’s Handball Championship. They also lost 29-28 to Spain in the quarter-finals at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
France lost to Croatia in the semi-finals, but rebounded with another close victory, 35-34 over Portugal, in the bronze medal match. Aymeric Minne paced the team with 10 goals.
The Top Players
Gidsel, who led all players with 74 goals on 107 shots, was the tournament MVP. He was one of three Danish players on the tournament All-Star Team alongside left back Simon Pytlick and goalkeeper Emil Nielsen, who led all keepers with 125 saves on 294 shots. Portugal’s Francisco Costa and France’s Dika Mem tied for second with 54 goals. Costa won Best Young Player. Dylan Nahi (France), Martim Costa (Portugal), Ivan Martinović (Croatia), Mario Šoštarić (Croatia), and Victor Iturriza (Portugal) were also named to the All-Star Team.
Poland Wins President’s Cup
The bottom eight teams in the preliminary round compete for the President’s Cup. This year’s edition featured two groups of four teams, won by the United States and Poland, each with perfect 3-0 records. The US had only won two games in previous IHF World Men’s Handball Championships, while Poland had won one silver and three bronze medals. The US jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the President’s Cup and were up 13-11 at halftime, but didn’t score in the final 10 minutes. Poland rallied to tie the game at 19 and won 24-22.