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Denmark win women's Olympic handball gold medal
ATTENTION - UPDATES with details and quotes /// = = SYDNEY, Oct 1 (AFP) - Left wing Anette Hoffman Moberg fired off 11 goals as Denmark snared their second straight gold medal in the Olympic women's handball Sunday with a come-from-behind 31-27 win over Hungary in the final. The win marked a spectacular turnaround for the Atlanta champions who were relegated to sixth place at last year's world championships in Norway after being soundly beaten by the Hungarians in a fifth place classification match. Coming into the competition, Danish coach Jan Pytlick had said the team was expecting a finish anywhere between fifth and eighth in the Olympic competition. But led by Hoffman Moberg and leading scorer Camilla Andersen the Danes staged a remarkable win over the South Koreans in the semi-finals before coming from behind to draw level with less than 10 minutes left and beat the Hungarians. "I can't grasp this," Pytlick said. "The finish was awesome. We talked about pulling ourselves together and when the pressure was at its highest we just did." Denmark, whose team included six returnees from the side that won gold in Atlanta, took an early lead in the first half but allowed the Hungarians to fight back and lead 16-14 at halftime. Fired by star Bojana Radulovic, the Hungarians built that into a six-point lead in the first 12 minutes of the second half that threw a scare into the Danes before a lightning fast 7-1 run by Denmark over the next 8:20 drew them level at 23-23 with 9:40 left. From there, the two teams traded goals before the Danes' leading scorer of the competition, Camilla Andersen, gave Denmark a 25-24 lead, pushing them in front for the first time in the second stanza with just over seven minutes left. Beata Siti added a diving score for the Hungarians to draw things level on 25-25 again before Andersen launched a fiery shot over the defence from eight metres out to give the Danes the lead again at 26-25 with less than five minutes left. Andersen added her third-straight to hand the Danes a 27-26 lead before Dora Lowy hit the post for the Hungarians and an Andersen penalty handed the Danes a 28-26 lead with 2:40 to go. Hoffman Moberg then scored three straight to build her goal total to 11 for the game and 30 for the Olympic tournament and close out the match. The left wing said it had taken just a few goals to turn things around for the Danes in the second half. "That really helped our confidence and that was the end of that," she said. But Hungarian coach Lajos Mocsai said his team had given the Danes breathing room at a crucial point with a series of mistakes that cost the Hungarians their first gold medal in handball after claiming two bronzes in the last three Games. "We made mistakes today which are not affordable in a gold medal match," he said. "The Hungarian team is not going to have this opportunity for a very long time. We had a game plan worked out but the system broke down." Earlier, world champions Norway overcame a halftime deficit to beat Asian champions South Korea 22-21 and win the bronze medal. The win was some consolation for the Norwegians after their upset at the hands of the Hungarians in the semi-finals. But the loss for the South Koreans only exacerbated what has been their worst Olympic tournament in 20 years when they went home in fourth place after taking two golds and two silvers in the last four Games.
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