Sweden stormed towards a third straight victory in the Olympics.
Then they collapsed against Denmark.
Afterwards, the national team captain Tomas Axnér was forced to roar away.
– You have to understand that, he says.
Sweden’s handball ladies have not had any easy matches so far during this year’s Olympic tournament in Paris. Already in the premiere, they were well tipped for defeat against gold favorite Norway, but there was a clear win there, and it was followed up by another victory against Germany. And it looked for a long time to be a third straight victory in the group stage on Tuesday night.
Lost everything
Sweden admittedly had a nightmare match and quickly found themselves at a serious disadvantage. But Sweden played up for the second half, it was completely even. But the momentum belonged to Sweden, and it quickly became a lead of a couple of balls, and with less than ten minutes left to play, it looked like Blue Yellow could decide.
With the score 23-21 to Sweden, they also got a penalty throw for a three-goal lead, and a Danish two-minute lead with it. But the penalty was missed, Denmark caught up, and eventually won 25-23. Sweden has thus still not won a competitive match against Denmark in seven (!) years, and Blue Gold also missed the chance to acquire a dream position to go far in this year’s Olympics. Sweden is now again second in the group, behind Norway, before the meeting against South Korea tomorrow.
“You must understand that!”
Sweden did not score a single goal during the last nine minutes of the match and many believed that Sweden squandered the victory, and thus also a possible group victory, but national team captain Tomas Axnér was forced to roar against that image after the loss.
– We face one of the world’s best handball teams. You must understand that! It is a team full of stars who play in the biggest clubs. We didn’t waste anything that way. We went in and gave them a damn good fight and lost on little maringales. We would have liked to have taken a point today to be able to secure first place on our own, says Tomas Axnér to Aftonbladet.
However, Denmark lost by as many as nine balls against Norway, which Sweden defeated. But Axnér saw a completely different team on Tuesday.
– It is a team that is very defense oriented. They have a lot of players who have been in this situation many times before and stepped up at the end. Then we found it difficult to resist backwards, he says.
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