5-5 and a tie after ten minutes of play. But after that, there was only one team on the court.
At halftime, Denmark had pulled away to a nine-goal lead, and had already then got one foot on the top step of the podium.
And that's exactly what happened. Denmark continued to thrash Germany in the second half and won with a crushing 39-26.
Historic victory
This is the largest victory ever in a handball final at the Olympic Games, on both the women's and men's sides.
The previous record was a seven-goal difference, 36 years old, when the Soviet Union beat the home nation South Korea 32-25 in Seoul 1988. It has also been tied in several matches since then.
The top scorer became Mathias Gidsel, who scored a total of eleven goals.
The superstar retires
One of the players who got to celebrate the gold a little extra was Mikkel Hansen. The Dane, according to many one of the best handball players of all time, announced before the OS that he would retire after the tournament.
Until the second half of the final, the 36-year-old had mainly been focused on jumping in from the bench now and then, and taking care of the penalty shots. Something he did with bravado. But in the second half, the left-hander got the chance to step out and play at the end of the match, to finish his magnificent career on the court and not on the bench.
Hansen made no major mistakes, and could call himself an Olympic champion for the second time.
Spain won the bronze, after a narrow victory over Slovenia in the match for third place.
