In a tournament where most things have gone smoothly for the Danish national handball team, things were about to go completely wrong on the final day of the event.
Lasse Andersson was so sick that he was unable to take part. National coach Nikolaj Jacobsen chose to replace him with Mads Mensah, so Andersson had to watch the final from the stands.
"It has been a bad day. I woke up at four o'clock last night and was very sick. I won't go into details, but at least I wasn't in my bed and I've been lazy all day."
"I tried to report myself ready for the match, but the national coach said that it was probably better that one of the reserves replaced me instead, says Lasse Andersson.
Several players woke up with a bad stomach and felt very sick and goalkeeper Emil Nielsen, who five times during thee tournament has been voted Man of the Match, was also badly affected.
"A few didn't sleep much last night, and of course it made us a little nervous when "Emil Bolværk", who has been fantastic throughout the tournament, didn't come down for either breakfast or lunch", says Mathias Gidsel.
"In the dressing room he looked like someone who was not ready to play a final. But as we said: Get through the warm-up, then it's twice 30 minutes, and then we're done", says Gidsel.
Despite the poor start, Emil Nielsen helped Denmark to secure a 32-26 win and thus the fourth successive World Cup title.
A majority of the players in the Danish squad was to some effect affected by the virus and did not get too much sleep over night but still managed to win the final by a comfortable margin.