France show their class - London 2012 - Handball

The French are widely regarded to be the best side in the sport's history, and Les Bronzes showcased exactly why they are the favourites to retain their title with an imposing display of physicality and a strong defence.

Britain, making their Games debut in the competition, opened the scoring through Steven Larsson but France's superiority soon told and they rattled off six successive goals to lead 7-2 in the 13th minute.

The hosts did not allow France to run away with it and back-to-back goals from Robin Garnham and Chris Mohr kept the home crowd interested and the deficit down to three.

But their continental opponents again flexed their muscles, scoring seven unanswered strikes, and with a measly defence, they claimed an unassailable 16-6 lead after 24 minutes.

Another strong spell saw that become 21-7 by the half-time break and it really was a case of damage limitation.

Unfortunately it was more of the same in the second half as France scored at regular intervals and their task was made all the easier seven minutes after the restart when Larsson was sent off.

Guillaume Joli top-scored for the champions with 11.

Meanwhile, in the day's other games, Iceland claimed a win against Argentina, Croatia beat Republic of Korea, Sweden ran out 28-21 winners against Tunisia, Spain claimed a 26-21 victory over Serbia and Hungary edged a narrow win against Denmark.