Partner: some intimate photos, a depression and nine operations later, Nora Mork continues to beat
"In handball the most important thing is not height: it is to find your strength and know how to use it. There may be players of all sizes. You just need to believe in yourself. I hope my example will serve future generations. They have said that I am not tall enough.
The claim is from
Stine Oftedal
, Norway of 1.65 meters, the best handball player in the world and, from this Sunday, the captain of the current European champion.
The final against France focused on her.
In the first half, he ordered the game to his liking, danced among the towering Galas defenders and his team had a five-goal lead (9-14, min. 29).
In the second, the French coach,
Olivier Krumbholz
, invented a defense to stop her, but her teammates, especially
Nora Mork
, resolved without it (20-22).
Four years later, just in time, before the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Norway is once again the power that was and in the direction, Oftedal, whose career has been marked by a strength-weakness: height.
Always the lowest of the team, her success is proclaimed;
yes you can, although genetics did not make things easy.
Her own sister
Hanna
, who was also a player and retired a few months ago due to injuries, was taller than her, but never that decisive.
The disadvantage of his size led Oftedal to his current, electric, powerful game, in some way countercultural in an increasingly physical handball.
Javelin thrower in adolescence -like the Spanish
Marta Mangué
, among other players-, her story meets that of her partner Mork on many points.
Both were coached by their mothers in childhood, both faced their clubs in the lower echelons and both ended up in the Hungarian Gyori Audi that has dominated Europe in recent times.
In fact, Oftedal's great performance in the just-finished European Championship has a lot to do with Mork's return after his numerous knee injuries.
"She is my best friend for a long time, she is very important to me and we are very close," Oftedal told the Norwegian newspaper VG about her former neighbor on the landing in Hungary from 2017 until this summer.
Mork then returned to the Norwegian Vipers Kristiansand to regain the rhythm of the game and she stayed at the Gyori Audi to receive the International Handball Federation (IHF) title of best player in the world.
"It is very difficult to talk about the award, to speak in those terms of myself, for me they are major words. I think there are many magnificent players and I am not sure that I deserve that honor, but obviously I take it as a compliment," she declared fair. before the European final in which she would beat France, she said, "a special match" for her.
Because the French team beat Norway in the final of the 2017 World Cup that was supposed to elevate it - it was MVP of the tournament.
Or because it was in Paris that Oftedal became who he is today.
At Issy-Paris, a team that convinced her father because of its proximity to the Eiffel Tower, the Norwegian learned to take advantage of its height and play finals.
There, between national and international tournaments, he played 10 and only won one, a modest League Cup, in a forever apprenticeship.
This Sunday against France he showed that the lesson is already well known, although in the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021 he will have to confirm it with a gold.
Europe, the world ... handball is yours and what do centimeters matter?
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