Handball
31st March 2008, 11:20 GMT
From August 9-24, 2008, the Olympic handball competition will be held at the Beijing Olympic Sports Center Gymnasium and the National Indoor Stadium.
The fields and rules of handball have a lot in common with that of football and basketball, that's why we call it a sport "between" football and basketball.
The handball fields are similar but smaller than football fields. But the goals are surrounded by a near-semicircular line that is generally six metres from the goal. Only the defending goalkeeper is allowed to step inside the perimeter, or the player's team will be penalized.
Though handball isn't as popular worldwide as football and basketball, it has an origin reaching back as far as ancient Greece. The team handball game we know today was formed around the end of the 19th century in northern Europe.
At the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Adolf Hitler specially requested handball be played. After that handball was removed from the list of Olympics sports, and wasn't returned until the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich.
Textsource: CRI Nordic
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