BEIJING: Iceland’s men’s handball team earned a shot at winning their nation’s first ever Olympic gold medal yesterday with stunning win over Spain that set up a showdown with tournament favorite France.

Iceland crushed Spain 36-30 in their semifinal while France ended Croatia’s hopes of defending the Olympic title for the first time with a 25-23 win.

Iceland have equalled their country’s highest Olympic achievement simply by making the final and guaranteeing themselves the silver medal, a feat last achieved by their nation in the triple jump in 1956. The country’s meager Olympic medal trophy also includes two bronze medals, one for the women’s pole vault in Sydney in 2000 and one for men’s in Los Angeles in 1984. Snatching gold would be unprecedented and sure to spark frenzied celebrations among Iceland’s 300,000 population.

Players wiped tears from their eyes as they thanked about 100 noisy supporters who made the trip to the National Indoor Stadium, where Chinese locals also backed the Nordic underdogs. Iceland caught Spain napping with an early onslaught and raced to a 5-0 lead after five minutes, never allowing their opponents to recover momentum. They were 17-15 up at the break and the lead had blown out to six goals going into the final 10 minutes, with the Norsemen matched a desperate Spain goal for goal to keep it that way until the final whistle.

Spanish coach Juan Carlos was not convinced the Icelanders team ethos could pull off a fairytale win against a well drilled French team packed with individual talent.

“France have been playing very, very well,” he said. “I think they’ll be a really tough opponent for Iceland to beat.” Indeed French coach Claude Onesta said his players could move up a gear after they overcame a gritty Croatian outfit in a bruising encounter, lambasting his players for hasty passing and poor shooting.

“It was a hard match,” he said. “We could have played better but there is a lot of pressure in the semifinals. I was extremely happy with our perforamance in the final five minutes.” For France, making the final will help erase painful memories of Athens, when they were also red-hot favorites after a five-match winning streak but crashed out in the quarter-finals.

“We’ve spent years getting ready for this but the game is not won yet,” right winger Luc Abalo said.

Both France and Croatia applied crunching defense and exchanged tit-for-tat goals, with three goals the maximum lead throughout an arm-wrestle of a match where the lead changed hands four times.

Croatia had the better of the early exchanges but France enjoyed their strongest spell at the end, pulling three goals clear two minutes from time to give their opponents little time to make up the deficit.

Croatian center-back Ivano Balic said he was disappointed at missing out the the chance of a gold medal but his side would have no trouble motivating itself for the bronze medal match against Spain.

“We’re still in the tournament and we still believe,” he said.

“We must still fight until the end.”