By MARK REY MONTEJO
The Philippine women’s handball team could just match its 12th place finish the last time after yielding to Vietnam, 16-14, 12-16, 4-8, in the 2026 IHF Beach Handball World Championships in Zagreb, Croatia Sunday, June 28.
Determined to better their 12th finish last edition, the Nationals got off to a strong opener before losing their steam in the next two frames where the Vietnamese, led by Thanh Huyen Dam Thi, successfully delivered their counter to place 11th in the global showpiece.
The Philippines also had a 12th-place finish two years ago in China.
Josephine Ong topscored for the Filipinas with 10 points, while Aurora Adriano backed her up with eight points in a losing cause, while Dam Thi paced Vietnam off 15 points.
Still, the Filipinos will go home with pride intact following a stunning 14-26, 23-22, 7-6 victory over three-time world champion Brazil.
It was the country’s biggest win in the event.
However, it failed to secure a quarterfinal ticket as it bowed to Greece, 18-19, 12-21, and Norway, 22-26, 27-24, 6-8.
Those setbacks relegated the PH team to the classification round where it split its first two contests against the United States (20-18), and Uruguay (16-23, 18-14, 2-5) before it eventually stumbled to Vietnam.
Meanwhile, Argentina avenged its last year’s finals loss to Germany and beat Denmark, 20-14, 14-27, 6-2, to capture its first-ever world title in the distaff side.
