Brazilian women's handball team qualified for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games after winning the gold medal at the 15th Pan American Games on Saturday.
The host team scored an easy victory of 30-17 over Cuba to win their third Pan Am Games women's handball title.
Encouraged by a full-capacity of fans, the Brazilians dominated the match against Cuba, one of their two major rivals in the Americas. The other is Argentina.
The Cubans started the match strongly by leading 2-0. But soon after the Brazilian team reacted and got to the end of the first half leading 15-8. Brazilian major scorers were Fabiana Diniz and Fabiana Gripa, scoring 5 goals each. But the game's highest scorer was Suleiky Gomez Hernandez of Cuba, who scored 6 goals.
Early on, in an exciting game, Argentina got the bronze by beating the Dominican Republic 23-22.
The match was only decided in the final moments. After a quite even first half, finishing 11-11, the Argentines pulled away to 21-17 midway in the second half. But the Dominicans didn't give in and managed to come to level the score at 22-22. At the last minute, Silvana Totolo scored the winner to give Argentina the bronze medal.
Source: Xinhua
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