The Maltese U-17 league champions, La Salle, recently represented the country at the 41st Interamnia World Cup which was played in Teramo, Italy.

Christian McClean’s boys competed in the higher Under-18 age group category and started their group qualifiers with a close 12-10 victory over the Police Union team, of Libya.

However, La Salle were unable to extend that auspicious start to their next matches. In fact, they conceded six straight defeats and were never near qualification to the knock-out stages of the competition.

La Salle were beaten by Rudersdal (Denmark – 17-7), Teramo (Italy – 15-8), Alberstund (Denmark – 18-5), Nice (France – 12-5), Echaz Erms (Germany – 20-8) and UKS Sportacus (Poland – 15-7).

Favourites Echaz Erms won the tourna-ment after beating Alberstund 17-12 in the final.

“It is always good when you give young players a chance to play in these tournaments,” McClean said.

“The more they play, the more opportunities they are likely to get. This tournament was a great experience for our promising players at the club.”

Meanwhile, during the weekend a beach handball course was organised for the first time by the Malta Handball Association in conjunction with the International Handball Federation.

The course was made up of four sessions, two dealing mainly with the rules of the games and tactics and the other two based on practice conducted at Golden Bay.

The course was led by Panos Antoniou who represents the beach handball working group within the international federation.

Antoniou was assisted by Fernando Posada Novoa, a former Spain beach handball coach.

Malta Handball Association president Louis Borg said that while hoping that more people will become interested in this fast and attractive sport, he expects that beach handball competitions will soon become part of the annual events held by his organisation.