Poland coach Wenta quits after Olympic miss

Poland's men's handball coach, former international Bogdan Wenta, announced his resignation on Thursday after his team failed to qualify for the London Olympics.

"To halt all the discussion, assumptions, speculation, rumours and lies about me, I wish to inform the media that I am ending my cooperation with the Polish men's handball team," Wenta told reporters. "I already made up my mind in Alicante," he said, referring to the Spanish city which from April 6-8 hosted an International Handball Federation Olympic qualification tournament.

Spain and Serbia won out in that race, while Poland and the fourth participant, Algeria, both failed to make the cut.

Wenta, 50, has been a handball star in Poland for years and was an iconic member of his country's squad in the 1980s and 1990s.

He was put in charge of the national team in 2004, combining the job with coaching the Polish club Vive Targi Kielce.

On his watch, the unheralded Poles won a World Championships silver medal in 2007 and came fifth at the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

They went on to take bronze at the 2009 Worlds and notched up fourth place at the following year's European Championships, Poland's best-ever result in a continental competition.

But fans' high expectations were dented by an eighth-place finish at the 2011 Worlds, and ninth at the 2012 European Championships.