Handball: Algeria to perpetuate the tradition
This is a good news for Algeria in this worldwide crisis that is still giving rhythm to our daily life, even though some big progress has been made, especially in Europe in countries like France, Spain and Italy, which used to be strongholds of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The African Handball Confederation presided by Beninese Dr. Mansourou Aremou officially certified that Algeria would be hosting the 37th edition of the African Handball Cup Winners’ Cup about to be played from March 31 to April 9. This tournament is actually taking place each year and gathers the cup winners of African local leagues.
The 36th edition was already supposed to be hosted by Algeria in last March-April 2020, but the coronavirus disease compelled the authorities to cancel it. To a certain extent, it is somewhat normal to attribute the next tournament to a country that missed it the previous year due to an exogenous reason.
The least we can say is that such a competition has been appreciated by Algeria over the last few years, with not less than 23 finals and 12 victories since 1985 and the first edition in Cairo, Egypt. The most crowned team is GS Pétroliers, an Algerian sports club which cumulates 9 wins in this tournament.
On a global perspective, the African Handball Cup Winners’ Cup is widely pampered by Maghreb, mostly when you take a look at the last years of competition. Clubs like Zamalek (Egypt), ES Tunis (Tunisia) and Al Ahly (Egypt) took the recent finals, sometimes with a comfortable advance (31-22 for Al Ahly against Hammamet in 2017 in Agadir). The last victory of a country of sub-Saharan Africa dates back to 2006 with Minuh Yaoundé, fourteen years ago! Is the upcoming event in Algeria going to be a continuity or a termination?
By Guillaume Mahot
