(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Germany defeated Slovenia 30-27 to take the last spot for the Olympic qualification which was available at the 24th Men's Handball World Championship.
Germany finished seventh at the championship yesterday at Lusail Multipurpose Arena.
Even though Slovenia played with their substitutes from the outset, they still got the better start, being two goals up at 2-0, 3-1 and 5-3 and even three up at 7-4, mainly due to a strong right side in the attack with right back Jure Natek scoring four and right wing Vid Kavticnik scoring two of the Slovenians' first seven goals.
After a timeout, though, it did not take Germany long to regroup, and already at 7-7 they had caught up with the Slovenian three goal lead.
Slovenia still kept a one goal lead, though, until Germany took command for the first time at 10-9 after 18 minutes.
That lead was soon extended to two goals at 11-9 and 12-10, and later to 14-12 and 15:13, before Germany could also book a two goal lead at half time, 16-14.
From the beginning of the second half the Germans increased their lead to three goals at 20-17, to four at 22-18, and to five at 24-19.
Jure Natek was the only real threat to the German defence, and he alone could obviously not keep Slovenia in the game.
A direct red card for left wing Luka Zwizej 13 minutes and 43 seconds into the second half obviously handicapped the Slovenians even further in the efforts to get back into the match.
They never even got near. Instead, Germany extended their advantage to six goals at 27-21, and even though the Germans lost a little concentration in the last 10 minutes, they were still able to maintain their six goal lead until the last minutes of the match, when Slovenia managed to reduce the deficit in half.
Uwe Gensheimer scored no less than 13 goals for Germany, while Natek led Slovenia with eight.
Slovenia will have to wait for the Asian Olympic Qualification event in October 2015 or for the European championship in January 2016, to know whether their eighth position will be enough to qualify for those tournaments.
If Qatar do not become world champions today but win the Asian tournament, Slovenia are through, as well as when one of the European teams ranked among the top 7 of Qatar 2015 become European champions and qualify for Rio.
Denmark and Croatia already had secured their spot for the Olympic qualification tournaments.
Meanwhile, Denmark finish fifth a defeating Croatia 28-24 in the match for the fifth place at Lusail.
After an equal enough beginning, the two teams took their turns at being one goal up. But the Danish defence and goalkeeper Jannick Green soon got the better of the Croatian attack, and the Danes could create a four goal gap which caused Croatia's coach Slavk Goluca to call an early time-out after 13 minutes and 37 seconds.
That time-out did not bring the Croatians back into the game though.
Their defence had their problems with the fast and creative Danish attacking play, and the Croatian attempts to take speed off the game did not have much success either.
Denmark went ahead 14-8, but replacing Mirko Alilovic in goal with Filip Ivic helped the Croatians a little, and so did pushing Igor Vori forward in a 5-1 formation in the defence, but still the Danes could take a 15-11 lead with them to half-time.
The start of the second half was also dominated by Denmark.
The Danish defence still stood well, and behind it Jannick Green went on doing his job saving shots.
At the end the Danes could celebrate a four-goal win.
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