Date:
4/16/2011
From 9 to 16 April 2011,
Medellin in Colombia was the stage of another successful Challenge Trophy
Tournament of the Pan American Competition. In the Southern Zone of PATHF,
Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador and Peru competed for the top two places which
lead on the Continental Phase of the IHF Women’s Pan American Challenge Trophy
taking place in Guatemala from 13 to 19 June 2011. The best two team from
Medellin will join there the already qualified Guatemala and Nicaragua for the
ultimate showdown and decision who will represent Pan America on the I Women’s
Intercontinental Challenge Trophy.
After a round robin
competition, the semi finals were drawn in which Cuba faced Peru and Ecuador
got the difficult task to play against the host nation Colombia. Cuba was quite
dominant in their game comfortably beating Peru with 74:8 (42:3) and Colombia
was convincing against Ecuador celebrating a victory of 42:21 (27:9). These
results meant that Ecuador would face Peru in the match for 3rd place and Cuba
would play Colombia in the Grand Final.
In the battle for the
bronze, Ecuador managed to beat Peru with 37:21 (14:11) despite the strong
performance of the Peruvian team in the first half, and in the final in front
of 1500 loud spectators, Cuba managed clearly to win the match with 47:17
(23:10) against the organizer Colombia.
This means that both Cuba
and Colombia will represent the Southern Zone on the Continental Phase taking
place in 6 weeks in Guatemala City.
As usual the Challenge
Trophy in Medellin was accompanied by simultaneous courses for coaches and
referees as one of the goals of the International Handball Federation in
promoting handball worldwide. Mr Salvio Sedrez (BRA) was in charge of the
referees course and Mr. Hugo Valdebenito (CHI) was running the course for
coaches.