EU SUMMIT/COPENHAGEN: A muscular blonde midfielder from Jutland has Denis Staunton (and everyone else) distracted in Copenhagen
They have come to Copenhagen from both sides of Europe, east and west, and after months of preparation they are braced for a punishing fight to the finish. The stakes are high, passions are at boiling point and their struggle is the talk of the Danish capital.
I am referring, of course, to the European Women's Handball Championship, which is in Copenhagen until Sunday. The event is dominating newspaper front pages and television news bulletins, edging out the EU summit being held a few miles away.
Handball is a national passion in Denmark but the game being played here is quite unlike the Gaelic game of the same name. A cross between soccer and basketball, it is popular throughout Scandinavia and in many of the formerly communist countries in eastern Europe.
Denmark's men's team have been in the doldrums for some time but there are high hopes for this year's women's team, led by a sensational midfielder from Jutland, Kristina Andersen.
Ms Andersen is tall, blonde and handsome, with a musculature that would not look out of place on the cover of a men's fitness magazine.
She played a key role in Denmark's triumph this week over Romania and Copenhagen's leading tabloid devoted its entire front page to a photograph of her winning goal.
The headline caught the national mood - "Cannonball Kris Snatches Victory from Dracula's Daughters".
Denmark's dapper prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has a long way to go before he attains Ms Andersen's status as a national icon. But his deft handling of the EU Presidency has enhanced his reputation, even among political opponents.
Mr Rasmussen's choice of the Bella conference centre for this week's summit suggests that he may have a better sense of humour than many imagined. Situated on a spit known locally as Garbage Island, the Bella Centre could serve as a metaphor for the EU.
It forms the heart of an ambitious new city that was meant to be the last word in luxury, with expensive housing, shops, cinemas and sports centres.
Investment has become uncertain and nobody is really sure if Denmark needs a new city but the project is so far advanced that there is no option but to proceed.
The next stage in the European project will come today when 10 new member-states are invited to join but last night's discussions were dominated by the setting of a date for the start of membership negotiations with Turkey.
Some member-states are reluctant to welcome Turkey into the EU fold, not least because it is an overwhelmingly Muslim country. But by the time they arrived in Copenhagen last night, most EU leaders had swallowed their doubts and were getting ready to give Ankara the green light.
As one jaded observer put it: "It's not so much a question of turkeys voting for Christmas as Christians voting for Turkey."