Partille Cup is not only the largest handball tournament in the world, it is also arguably the best organized.
This year, the tournament was even visited by the arena manager of the 2012 Olympic Handball Tournament in London, Fred Wallace, who brought a team of ten people to watch and learn.
“[Wallace’s] organization wants to see how we can make our arena, Scandinavium, go from hosting the opening, to being the host for more than 3,000 handball coaches —serving food and putting on shows—and then to a World Cup-class handball arena in only three days," General Secretary of the Cup, Fredrik Andersson, told the website, Svensk Elithandboll.
"This is the first and probably only trip I make before the Olympics because Partille Cup is the biggest and the best, so I couldn't learn more anywhere else," Wallace told the Swedish newspaper, Göteborgsposten.
The tournament began on Tuesday and is mainly centered around Heden, in central Gothenburg, although there are other venues as well.
"It's also great to meet teams from other countries and not be stuck with Swedish teams, like every other day of the year," he added with a laugh.
The over 20,000 participants come from five continents. Bangladesh, Chile, and Singapore are participating in the event for the first time ever, this year.
Bergström said that the teams are guaranteed a certain number of games, which is a good thing.
"If you are coming all the way over here from countries far away, it's good that you get a chance to play," he said.
Julia Jahnke, 18, has travelled by bus with her team from Germany. "We're not good enough to finish among the top ten in our age group, but we're really happy to be here. We want to play and have fun, and that's what we're doing," she said.
In the beginning, the tournament was held in Partille, a small municipality outside Gothenburg. Players lived in schools, which is common for youth tournaments in all kinds of sports now, but was considered a novel idea back then.
It was not until 1979, however, that the tournament started expanding internationally—after organizers realized that they needed to breathe new life into the event. Letters were sent to foreign countries, and the following year the first international teams participated.
The organizers of Partille Cup have even helped other countries develop their own handball organizations from scratch, so that they could send teams to Sweden to participate.
When the tournament became too big for Partille, it moved to Heden, where it resides today.
Heden is also famous for hosting the largest international soccer tournament for youth teams, Gothia Cup, which will be held later this year.
