Handball - Team Sweden

General
Sweden's men's handball team have a habit of winning silver medals at the Olympic Games. Between 1992 and 2012 the nation qualified a squad for four editions of the Olympic Games and on each occasion fell one game short, losing in the final every time. The trend was broken in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, but not in the way the team would have hoped with a disappointing showing leaving them ranked 11th at the end of the tournament.

Sweden secured a spot at the Tokyo Games via the Men's Olympic Qualification Tournaments held in March 2021. Competing in Tournament 3 in Berlin, the Swedes advanced along with Germany after the two sides drew with each other in their opening match and then both defeated Slovenia and Algeria.

The team finished second at the 2021 World Championship in Egypt. The result was their best finish at the tournament since they ranked second in 2001 and was the 12th top-three finish for them overall. They are four-time world champions, but their most recent title came in 1999. At the 2021 edition, the Swedish team breezed through the preliminary phase with three victories, before drawing two games and winning one in the main round. An easy win over Qatar in the last eight was followed by a semifinal victory over France, but Denmark proved to be too strong in the final, winning 26-24.

Sweden were near peerless at the European championship for an eight-year period between 1994 and 2002, winning four of the five titles on offer during that time. However, their only top-three finish since 2002 is a second place at the 2018 tournament. At the 2020 European Championship, they ranked seventh.