Handball Trivia
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38 free Handball trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This handball trivia quiz covers the whole of team handball, the fast, high-scoring indoor game that fills arenas across Europe and appears every four years at the Summer Olympics. It starts with the rules and the court: the seven-metre throw, the six-metre crease, the three-step rule, two-minute suspensions and the two referees who share every match. From there it moves into history, from Holger Nielsen's Danish rulebook of 1906 and the 1917 Berlin rules to field handball at the 1936 Games and the sport's indoor return in Munich in 1972. The second half is about the people and the trophies: Nikola Karabatić, Mikkel Hansen, Ivano Balić, Thierry Omeyer, Cristina Neagu, Anja Andersen and Kiril Lazarov; France's six world titles, Denmark's four in a row, Norway's women, THW Kiel and the Bundesliga, the EHF Champions League and beach handball's bikini-bottom controversy. Some questions are easy for anyone who has watched a tournament; others will stretch lifelong fans. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on the sport, its federations, championships and players, and each explanation adds one further detail. Play, see your score and challenge the rest of your team.
30 of 38 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A handball team has seven players on court; when may it send on substitutes?
At any time
At any time: substitutes come on over their own substitution line without telling the officials, once the player leaving has crossed off the court.
Q 02A tied handball knockout match goes first to what?
Extra time
Extra time: two five-minute halves are played, and a second such period if still level, before a tie-breaker such as a seven-metre shootout.
Q 03On handball's 40-by-20-metre court, where does play restart after a goal?
From the centre
From the centre: under the fast throw-off rule, the team that has just conceded can restart at once and hit back with a quick attack.
Q 04When handball's referees disagree on a punishment, which one is given?
The more severe one
The more severe one: the referees must first try to agree during a time-out, and only if they can't does the harsher call stand.
Q 05What earns a seven-metre throw in handball?
Foul on a clear chance
Foul on a clear chance: the throw is given wherever on court a clear chance is illegally destroyed, even by a spectator.
Q 06Handball's goal is the same size as which sport's goal?
Futsal
Futsal: its inventor, Juan Carlos Ceriani, took the goals from handball when he drew up the game's rules in Montevideo.
Q 07Which card do handball referees show for a disqualification with a written report?
Blue
Blue: it tells everyone the referees will file a written report, so the disqualified player can face further punishment such as a ban.
Q 08Which handball attacker plays with their back to goal among the defenders on the goal-area line?
Pivot
Pivot: also called the line player, it wrestles for space inside the defence, so strength and ball control matter more than jumping.
Q 09After a call against their team, what must a handball player holding the ball do?
Put it down at once
Put it down at once: a player who holds on to the ball instead risks a two-minute suspension.
Q 10Which handball referee signal warns an attacking team that it must shoot soon?
Raising one hand high
Raising one hand high: if the attackers keep stalling after that warning, the referees can give the ball to the other team.
Q 11In handball, when a goalkeeper deflects the ball over the outer goal line, who gets possession?
The defending side
The defending side: unlike a corner kick in football, the keeper's own team keeps the ball and restarts with a goalkeeper throw.
Q 12Which 1896 Olympic medallist published an early set of handball rules in 1906?
Holger Nielsen
Holger Nielsen: the all-round sportsman also invented, in 1932, a method for reviving people who had drowned.
Q 13In which city were the modern handball rules published on 29 October 1917, the sport's accepted birthday?
Berlin
Berlin: the game those rules set out had begun as a sport devised mainly for women and girls.
Q 21Which player scored 92 goals at the 2009 men's Handball World Championship?
Kiril Lazarov
Kiril Lazarov scored them for Macedonia, even though the team went out in the main round and finished only 11th.
Q 22Which was the first country outside Europe to win the women's Handball World Championship, in 1995?
South Korea
South Korea: the team's later run to the 2004 Olympic final inspired Forever the Moment, a 2008 film about handball.
Q 23Which Norwegian goalkeeper won seven women's World Championship medals, the last of them in 2025?
Katrine Lunde
Katrine Lunde: when her club Vipers Kristiansand went bankrupt in January 2025, she was able to sign for Denmark's Odense Håndbold.
Q 14How was handball played at its 1936 Olympic debut?
Outdoors, 11 players
Outdoors, 11 players: that field version was dropped, and handball returned to the Olympic programme only in 1972 as the indoor game.
Q 15In which city was the International Handball Federation founded in 1946?
Copenhagen
Copenhagen: the founding congress also voted to dissolve the prewar International Amateur Handball Federation and hand its duties to the IHF.
Q 16Hassan Moustafa, who became IHF president in 2000, comes from which country?
Egypt
He was appointed at the 28th Ordinary IHF Congress in 2000 and was still in office in 2025, a quarter of a century later.
Q 17Which country hosted the first indoor men's Handball World Championship in 1938?
Germany
Germany: the hosts won, and runners-up Austria were annexed by Germany just weeks later, in March 1938.
Q 18As of 2025, which nation had won the most men's Handball World Championships?
France
France: as recently as 1989 the team was playing in the second-tier B World Championship, where fifth place took it back to the top level.
Q 19Duda Amorim was named IHF World Player of the Year in 2014; which country did she play for?
Brazil
Brazil: she followed her older sister Ana, who played for Brazil at the 2004 Olympics, into handball.
Q 20Which was the first non-European country to medal at the men's Handball World Championship, in 2015?
Qatar
Qatar: the hosts took silver on home soil with a squad built largely from naturalised foreign players.
Q 24Which three-time IHF World Player of the Year won Olympic handball gold in 2008, 2012 and 2020?
Nikola Karabatić
Nikola Karabatić: born in Niš, he lived there with his mother until he was about four, then joined his father, a handball player working abroad.
Q 25Which Danish star followed his father Flemming into the national handball team?
Mikkel Hansen
Mikkel Hansen: when his Danish club folded in 2012, he moved to Paris Saint-Germain and stayed for ten seasons.
Q 26Which Croatian playmaker earned the nickname "Handball Mozart"?
Ivano Balić
Ivano Balić played basketball in Split until 1995, when a coach who had played with his father persuaded him to try handball.
Q 27As of 2025, who is the only woman to have won four IHF World Player of the Year awards?
Cristina Neagu
Cristina Neagu won three of those awards after a comeback: a shoulder injury kept her out for 605 days, and another injury cost her six months in 2013.
Q 28Anja Andersen's national women's team of the 1990s earned which nickname after their 1994 European gold?
The iron ladies
The iron ladies: in the 1996 Olympic final, Anja Andersen missed a penalty that could have clinched it, but Denmark still took gold.
Q 29Inside the goal area, which parts of the body may a handball goalkeeper use to block the ball?
Any part, including the feet
Any part, including the feet: court players may not play the ball with a foot or lower leg, but a keeper defending the goal area can kick it away.
Q 30Which club, like THW Kiel from Schleswig-Holstein, is Kiel's great handball rival?
SG Flensburg-Handewitt
SG Flensburg-Handewitt takes its double name from the 1990 merger of the handball sections of TSB Flensburg and Handewitter SV.