Finally, fans of women's handball have waited for the most important event of this year: the medal competition of the 17th world championship in this sport has begun in Russian St. Petersburg. Everything as usual: already from the start of the competition we received the first portion of "patterns" and a surprise. The latter was the loss of the silver medalist of the Athens Olympics - 2004, the South Korea team to the Slovenians - 35:42. True, for the sake of fairness it should be noted: today the team from Asia was represented by about 30 percent with a "rejuvenated" roster. But first about something else... \n \nPerhaps the most "mysterious" team in subgroup "D", in which our girls play, were the Cameroonians. First of all, the "blue-and-yellows" had never met them at official tournaments, and one could also state with one hundred percent certainty: the team from the African continent is distinguished by excellent physical conditioning and a number of tall handball players. The first to test the strength of the representatives of Cameroon at this world championship had to be the Ukraine national team. \n \nSo-called "reconnaissance" by the bronze medalists of Athens lasted only during the opening 4 minutes: to two accurate shots by Olena Yatsenko our opponents responded with attacks by Eke Bisono and Nanda Kuakam - 2:2. And then there was a quite logical spurt by the Ukrainians "+6": three times the name of the right winger Yatsenko appeared on the scoreboard, once each the team captain Natalia Liapina, as well as Anastasia Borodina and Maryna Verheliuk, also scored in the Africans' goal - 8:2. \n \nThus, for the break, before which our Olena Reznir managed to complete a handball "poker", the teams went with the score 18:10 in favor of the "blue-and-yellows". \n \nThe Ukrainians also won the second half of the match, but with a less impressive margin, as for the opponents - 16:13. At times the lead of our girls grew to 11 goals: this first happened in the 44th minute of the match, when the debutant of the national team Regina Shimkute (from Lviv's "Halychanka") demonstrated notable activity, converting three consecutive attacks of her team, after which Olena Reznir "reminded" of herself again - 26:15. \n \nThen - more: twice the best left winger of the 2004 European Championship Olena Radchenko "beat" the goalkeeper of the Cameroonian team Eveline Tapfu, while Reznir increased her goal tally to 10 scored goals (5 of them seven-meter throws). One of the "blue-and-yellows'" attacks was also completed by the captain of the Austrian "HIPOBANKa" Tetiana Shynkarenko, and another "autograph" in Tapfu's goal was left by Iryna Shybanova from the Hungarian "NISha". \n \nAt the same time, the main scoring "force" of the Africans was the aforementioned Eke Bisono, only out of her 10 goals she "earned" 9 by converting "seven meters". \n \nThus the final (60th) minute... Oksana Sakada again takes the Ukraine national team to an 11-goal lead, and that's it: final whistle - 34:23! \n \nOne cannot leave without attention the play of our team's goalkeepers: during the match Tetiana Vorozhtsova from the Hungarian "Debrecen" made 3 saves and conceded 7 goals (while 4 - from the seven-meter mark), whereas the player of Kyiv's "Spartak" Maria Makarenko saved 8 shots and could not prevent 16 shots (5 of them - handball penalties). \n \nUKRAINE – CAMEROON – 34:23 (18:10, 16:13). \n \nUkraine: Tetiana Vorozhtsova (3 saves/ from 10 shots on goal), Maria Makarenko (8/24) / Olena Reznir 10 goals (converted 5 seven-meter throws), Olena Yatsenko 7, Regina Shimkute 4, Natalia Liapina 3, Olena Radchenko 3, Maryna Verheliuk 2, Anastasia Borodina 2, Tetiana Shynkarenko 1, Oksana Sakada 1, Iryna Shybanova 1, Hanna Siukalo, Iryna Shutska \n \nWell, a good start, but one should not take this result too seriously: ahead of our girls await the most important "battles" of the subgroup. Already tomorrow the team of Leonid Ratner will take the court against the team of Macedonia, which today nearly defeated the current world champions, the handball players of France - 22:25. Having a 4-goal advantage after the first half (13:9), the Macedonians collapsed in the next thirty minutes - 9:16. It is worth recalling that the Macedonia national team is headed by the well-known Ukrainian specialist Andrii Portnoi, who at the same time directs the actions of one of the strongest clubs in Europe - "Kometal". As for the statistics of head-to-head meetings between this team and ours, within the framework of official competitions there have been 5: three times the "blue-and-yellows" left the court "with their shield", once everything ended in a draw, while in one more game the opponents of the Ukrainians were more successful. The last time their paths crossed was in 2001: in the 3rd round of the preliminary group stage of the world championship in Italy they "drew" a friendly - 22:22. \n \nThe continuation of the Ukrainian-Macedonian confrontation will take place tomorrow (start - at 17.30 Kyiv time). Today, in another game of our subgroup, the Romanians, proving the validity of the great advances given to them before the 2005 championship, easily "dealt with" the Argentinians - 31:15. True, this result is not a reason for premature conclusions, because it is simply impossible to objectively place representatives of South America in the status of worthy opponents for the favorites of world handball. \n \nAll results of the 1st round of the preliminary round of the 2005 world championship. \n \nSubgroup "A". \n \nRussia – Uruguay – 43:16 (25:8, 18:8) \n \nHolland – Croatia – 29:27 (17:11, 12:16) \n \nJapan – China – 27:33 (18:14, 9:19) \n \nSubgroup "B". \n \nHungary – Australia – 57:9 (27:5, 30:4) \n \nSlovenia – South Korea – 42:35 (20:18, 22:17) \n \nNorway – Angola – 36:30 (19:16, 17:14) \n \nSubgroup "C". \n \nDenmark – Brazil – 31:22 (12:13, 19:9) \n \nPoland – Germany – 21:33 (12:16, 9:17) \n \nAustria – Cote d'Ivoire – 32:21 (18:7, 14:14) \n \nSUBGROUP "D". \n \nUKRAINE – Cameroon – 34:23 (18:10, 16:13) \n \nRomania – Argentina – 31:15 (1767, 14:8) \n \nFrance – Macedonia – 25:22 (9:13, 16:9) \n \nIn our subgroup tomorrow meet: \n \nUKRAINE – Macedonia – 17.30 (Kyiv time) \n \nCameroon – Romania \n \nArgentina – France \n \nP.S. Only the top three teams from the subgroup will advance to the next (main) round of the world championship, and they will retain the points earned in meetings among themselves. \n