Kazakhstan Women

The Kazakhstan women's handball team enters this season still measuring itself against the same benchmark it set in 2010. Bronze at the 2021 and 2024 Asian Championships kept that standard alive without quite restoring it.

Those titles came eight years apart and against the same opponent. In 2002, in Almaty, Kazakhstan beat South Korea 27–25 for its first Asian crown. In 2010, again on home floor, the final went to the wire a second time, 33–32, with South Korean coach Yoon Tae-il, a former international goalkeeper, on the Kazakh bench.

The team's only Olympic appearance came in Beijing in 2008, where it finished tenth. A World Championship best of 18th, set in 2007, has stood since, and fourth-place finishes at the Asian Championship in 2006, 2012, 2015, 2017 and 2018 mark the gap between the golden run and the recent bronzes. The 2014 Asian Games added a third bronze medal to the record.

Earlier squads produced Xeniya Volnukhina, top scorer at the 2011 World Championship with 42 goals, and goalkeeper Tatiana Erokhina, who left for Russia and won Olympic gold there.

South Korea remains the opponent that defines Kazakhstan's tournament history, from both Asian finals to the group stages that have followed since.