The beach handball competition will conclude today with the open men’s and women’s finals.

Alongside the country’s top players, the event also features International Handball Federation (IHF) Beach Handball referees Daniela Andreea Enache and Corina Floriana Constantin from Romania, as well as Australian referees Claire Dennerley and Sally Potocki, who is also an Australian Handball representative.

They arrived in Rarotonga this week and conducted a workshop designed to educate and evaluate local referees with the pathway of obtaining IHF referees accreditation.

According to Enache, in Romania indoor handball is the second biggest sport after football, and they are trying to develop beach handball.

Enache has been a referee for 12 years, starting with indoor handball and refereeing beach handball for the last eight years. Prior to that, she played handball for up to nine years.

“We are here on behalf of the Beach Handball Federation International Handball Federation to support and share our beach handball experience with the referees and offer a two-day course,” Enache explained earlier this week.

“We will be officiating and hope to help to improve the level and get closer to the international level in refereeing in the sport.”

Constantin took up handball at the age of 10, playing for almost nine years.

After some injuries, she decided to become a referee to stay close to the sport.

She has 12 years of experience refereeing the sport, including seven years in beach handball.

Enache and Constantin met eight years ago and have been pairing in refereeing becoming continental international referees together two years ago, and also working with IHF.

“We are really happy to be here and to travel the world,” said Constantin. “We are here to help and share as much information as we can. We have found that people here are very interested and we want to help them.”