World champion Germany upsets Egypt at Beijing Olympic men's handball
14/8/2008 17:49
Bouncing back from a previous defeat and the loss of their left back
Pascal Hens, world titlist Germany outscored African champion Egypt 25-23 at the
Beijing Olympic men's handball event in Beijing today.
As the winner of the
2007 World Championship, Germany suffered a stunning defeat on Tuesday,
conceding 29-33 to dark horse Iceland. Left back Pascal Hens injured his knee
badly in the defeat and had to end his Olympic journey.
"We knew that this
match would be a hard-earned one. To be honest, yesterday we had a really bad
day because of Pascal Hens' injury. So we were insecure at the beginning of the
match. The Egyptians were on fire, they are playing an excellent tournament so
far. But we battled them down, so I tip my hat to my team," said German right
wing Florian Kehrmann.
African champ Egypt played aggressively in the first
half, left back Hussein Zaky scored seven goals to help the team tie Germany
14-14 at the interval. However, world champion Germany seized control of the
second half. They tightened their defence and gave Hussein Zaky "special care",
which made the 29-year-old Egyptian end scoreless after the break.
"This win
was really important for us. The whole team bounced back. We kept up our level
of play during the whole match. Our fighting morale was excellent. Everybody in
our team wanted that victory," said Holger Glandorf, right back of
Germany.
Talking about the injury in the team, German coach Heiner Brand
said,"So far as I know, Hens has already arrived in Germany safe and sound. He
will receive further treatment. We haven't talked much about him because we have
learned not to panic. In 2007 at the World Championship (which they won), many
of our players were injured."
"I hope that Hens was awake back in Germany at
three o'clock in the morning (and watched the game on TV) and I hope he was
awake not because he was in pain," added Florian Kehrmann.
Having suffered
two last-seconds setbacks beforehand, the Egyptian side were not satisfied with
the referees and refused to attend the post-match conference.
Xinhua
|
