adidas Handball will dominate courts across Croatia at the 21st Handball World Championship as official sponsor of the event and the International Handball Federation. Starting in Split today, the World Championship welcomes the cream of teams from around the globe to seven cities throughout Croatia, and anticipates a TV audience of 500 million over the coming two weeks.

Nine adidas teams will take part in the tournament including the defending champions Germany, Olympic gold medalists France and hosts Croatia.  Hungary, Russia, Sweden, Macedonia, Cuba and Slovakia complete the exciting adidas line-up, which will attract 700,000 of spectators over the coming weeks.

The adidas Stabil and Blitz CC7 will be the footwear of choice for players in at the Championship, such as World Player of the Year 2008 and Olympic Champion Nikola Karabtic, Croat Igor Vori, Germany’s Dominic Klein and Kim Andersson of Sweden.

Introduced in 1996 the Stabil footwear range quickly established itself as the best selling handball shoe on the market.  2009 sees the introduction of Stabil S, the eighth edition of this top performance product, which features a new SureCut technology to ensure the quickest directional change on court, while not compromising on stability. The BlitzCC7 is designed for a quicker and lighter player providing more flexibility through an improved Torsion®System, while ClimaCool® technology provides top foot aeration. 

The on-court kits, created for all adidas teams, feature the colourways of their country flag. With a ForMotion™ cut to ensure optimum movement, the apparel also features ClimaCool® technology to direct heat and sweat away from the body keeping players’ at an optimum temperature no matter how hot the competition gets.  As a base-layer many players will wear TECHFIT™ POWERWEB, the ultimate compression apparel proven to reduce wasted energy through extensive muscle support and create more efficient body movements.

Off court as official sponsor, adidas will outfit 1,200 volunteers while official licensed product including long sleeve layer tees, polos and track tops will be sold throughout Croatia and participating countries.

****