I am very excited to have finally been given the opportunity to guest edit the Journal that I helped create and to present the topic of sports medicine in handball. As a young man, handball was my sport. For a while, it was also my career while I studied and I was lucky enough to play in a team made up of some of the best players in the world and with them, reach the top of our sport. After I retired from competitive sport, I stayed involved in handball through medicine. As a young orthopaedic surgeon I was a national handball team doctor. I published several scientific papers on handball pathology and I felt happy that I had contributed to the sport I was so passionate about. However, in preparing this issue I have found that handball is still relatively under-represented in the field of sports medicine and that there is still a lot of work to do.

Handball has become a very popular Olympic sport in the past 40 years with nearly 25 million participants around the globe. The increased participation has exposed a greater number of players to injury, but the true risk of injury is difficult to quantify because of the lack of well-designed scientific studies. Basically, there is a discrepancy between the popularity of the sport in terms of the number of participants and media coverage it receives, and the number of scientific papers that have been published. For that reason in this issue we try to combine the clinical observations and experience of some senior authors with some well-documented scientific papers from younger writers.

On the positive side, this means that there is a lot of opportunity for anyone interested in sports medicine in handball. The content in this issue is for clinicians who are new to the sport, to help them to better understand handball pathology as well to encourage them to investigate future research opportunities.

This issue is also timely as in 2015, Qatar will host the World Men’s Handball Championships. Aspetar will have an important role in the planning and execution of this event. Aspetar’s Congress on Sports Medicine in Handball 2015 will fuel some expert discussion that should result in more papers on the topic for the benefit of our athletes.

I wish to express my gratitude to Aspetar for this opportunity, and to all the experts in this issue for their contribution to this Targeted Topic on sports medicine in handball.

Nebojsa Popovic MD PhD

Editor-in-Chief