Romania's national team was assigned to Group A, along with Croatia, Greece and Bosnia-Herzegovina, in the preliminaries of the European Women's Handball Championship - EHF EURO 2024, following the draw held on Thursday in Zurich.
Romania was in the second most valuable ballot box, along with Slovenia, Serbia, Poland, the Czech Republic, North Macedonia, Slovakia and Iceland, told Agerpres.
The draw established groups in general geographical areas, Montenegro, bronze medalist at last year's edition, being in the group with Serbia, Turkey and Bulgaria (Group 6).
The 7th group is a Nordic one and includes Sweden, Iceland and the Faroe Islands, along with Luxembourg.
The draw was conducted by the general secretary of the EHF, Martin Hausleitner, and stars of women's handball, such as Beatrice Edwige (France), Jovanka Radicevic (Montenegro), three-time European champion Veronica Kristiansen (Norway) and Kerstin Kundig (Switzerland).
31 teams will play in the preliminary groups of the competition (Great Britain withdrew), and 24 teams will participate in the final tournament, the first two ranked from each group, plus the best four teams in third place (20 in total) .
Hosts Austria, Hungary and Switzerland are directly qualified for the final tournament, as is the defending champion, Norway.
EHF EURO 2024 will be the first European Championship with 24 teams.
The preliminaries will begin on October 11, 2023 and will end on April 7, 2024.
The composition of the preliminary groups:
Group 1: Croatia, Romania, Greece, Bosnia-Herzegovina;
Group 2: Germany, Slovakia, Ukraine, Israel;
Group 3: Netherlands, Czech Republic, Portugal, Finland;
Group 4: France, Slovenia, Italy, Latvia;
Group 5: Spain, North Macedonia, Lithuania, Azerbaijan;
Group 6: Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, Bulgaria;
Group 7: Sweden, Iceland, Faroe, Luxembourg;
Group 8: Denmark, Poland, Kosovo;