These women are training to represent the US in an Olympic sport they'd never heard of

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Rylee White had never even heard of the fast-paced sport of handball until her roommate mentioned a TikTok video about tryouts in Los Angeles for the U.S. Olympic women’s team — no experience necessary.White, a 27-year-old screenwriter, knew she had to go. She wasn’t the only one. More than 150 women — buoyed by the viral video — attended the tryouts in January, a five-fold increase from previous turnouts.Five months later, White is one of a handful of women who have packed their bags and moved to Florida to join USA Handball’s national residency program, hoping to eventually be selected to represent the United States at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Handball is popular overseas but not in the USAs the host nation, the U.S. automatically qualifies for every sport. The last time the United States had a women’s handball team at the Games was in 1996. Finding the money and resources needed to field a competitive U.S. team is a constant challenge. Athletes are often dual citizens from Europe who play professionally overseas.While handball is little known in the U.S., it is popular in Germany, France, Norway and Denmark as well as Balkan nations in southeastern Europe. These countries usually dominate at the Olympics.