SSC
The first Field Handball World Championship was held in Germany in:
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Answer: Option B — 1938
Detailed Solution
The first Field Handball World Championship was held in Germany in 1938. Germany won the title. The same year, Germany also hosted the first indoor Handball World Championship (with seven-player teams), which Germany also won.
Field handball and indoor handball:
Field handball was played outdoors on a football-sized pitch with 11 players per team. It was popular in Germany and central Europe in the early 20th century.
Field handball was played at the Olympics only once, at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where Germany won the gold.
Indoor handball, with 7 players per team on a smaller court, gradually replaced field handball. The last Field Handball World Championship was held in 1966.
Modern (indoor) handball at the Olympics:
- Men's handball was introduced at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
- Women's handball was introduced at the 1976 Montreal Olympics.
Key rules of modern handball:
- Each team has 7 players on court: 6 outfield players and 1 goalkeeper.
- The court is 40 m x 20 m.
- The goal is 3 m wide and 2 m high, surrounded by a 6 m goal area that only the goalkeeper may enter.
- A match lasts 60 minutes (two halves of 30 minutes).
- Players may take up to three steps while holding the ball and hold it for up to three seconds.
- A 7-metre throw is like a penalty kick.
- The world governing body is the International Handball Federation (IHF), founded in 1946, with headquarters in Basel, Switzerland.
Handball in India:
The Handball Federation of India governs the sport. A professional league, the Premier Handball League, was launched in 2023.
Why not the other options?
- ✗1936 is the year field handball was played at the Berlin Olympics.
- ✗1954 is not the year of the first field handball championship.
- ✗1972 is when indoor men's handball entered the Olympics.
Quick tip
Remember: First Field Handball World Championship = 1938, Germany (also first indoor World Championship); field handball at Olympics only in 1936; indoor handball = Olympic since 1972 (men), 1976 (women).
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Sports — Preparation
This question tests your understanding of Sports, a key topic in the General Knowledge section. The detailed solution above uses a step-by-step approach to show the reasoning, and where available, a shortcut that helps you solve similar questions in under 90 seconds during the actual exam.
This topic covers sports GK: major tournaments and their venues, trophies and cups associated with each sport, sports terms, the number of players in a team, sports awards in India, Olympic and Asian Games facts, and famous sportspersons and their achievements. Common questions ask which sport a trophy belongs to (such as the Durand Cup for football or the Ranji Trophy for cricket), which term is used in which sport, and where a tournament was held. Records and results change after every season, so pair static facts such as team sizes and terms with recent results from current affairs. Practise the sports questions below, written in the style of the general awareness sections of exams such as SSC, banking, railways, CUET GAT, MAH CET and CLAT. Each question comes with a detailed explanation that adds related facts, so every question helps you revise more than one point.