European Champion Norway defeated host China 30-23 in the first round of preliminaries at the Beijing Olympic women's handball tournament on Saturday.

Drafted in Group A as the first class team, Norway is the reigning European Champ and runner-up of 2007 World Championship. But host China, 21st placer in 2007, played with aggression in front of a jubilant crowd of local fans. They launched a series of powerful long-shot to respond the opponent's fast breaks. At the end of the first half, China only trailed 12-13.

Norway tighten their defence in the middle area to block China's long shots when the game resumed, which worked well to lessen China's scores. Meanwhile, Norway's fast counter-attack helped them to extend the lead and Mette Johansen's last minute goal clinched their opening win.

"Before the match, we intentionally encouraged the players to launch more shots in order to help them build confidence. But as the game went on, we found more and more difficult to break their solid defence, which forced us to fire more long-shots," said Chinese coach Kang Jae Won, who is a former S. Korean handballer and won a silver in 1988 Seoul Games.

"Although we lost the game to a world class team, our players have gained confidence from this game," Kang added.

China's center back Li Weiwei topped the scoring list with eight goals. But the match belonged to Gro Hammerson who earned seven points in seven shots.

(Xinhua News Agency August 9, 2008)