Norwegian women’s handball is receiving international acclaim, both for its players, its coach, and its supporters.
01/08/2008 :: According to readers of the World Handball Magazine, Gro Hammerseng was women’s World Handball Player of the Year in 2007. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), for its part, decided that Norway’s national coach Marit Breivik deserved a prize for her leadership role in women’s sport. Both Hammerseng and Breivik received their awards in connection with a friendly match between Norway and Hungary on 22 July.
Hammerseng normally plays for the Danish club Ikast-Bording. In 2006 she came second in World Handball Magazine’s contest to select World Handball Player of the Year.
Breivik has been one of the best national handball coaches in the world since 1994, and what’s more, one of very few women to coach at this level. Among her achievements are winning three European Championship gold medals and one World Championship gold medal with the Norwegian national team. Now she only needs an Olympic gold medal to make her collection complete.
Marit Breivik and Gro Hammerseng. Photo: Terje Anthonsen
President of the International Handball Federation (IHF), Dr. Hassan Moustafa, was at the Bergslihallen sports hall in Larvik, around 100 kilometres south-west of Oslo, to present the awards to Breivik and Hammerseng. As if that were not enough, the President of the IHF also gave the Norwegian supporters in the organisation Håndballens Venner (Friends of Handball) a diploma, in recognition of the positive contribution they have made to supporter culture.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs