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When the handball girls battled France in the European Championship final yesterday, experienced TV3 commentator Gunnar Pettersen preferred to have Nora Mørk on the bench. He thought she was daring too little on the back right, and he was right. But then it was Nora who turned the game around for Norway:
- While the French girls were in their prime, she was more daring and hit the ball at an angle from a great, great distance.
Only the best do it this way under pressure.
And in 2020, Nora Mørk is the best.
Not only for handball girls, but also for Norway.
NORWAY RETURNS as the gold winner because Nora Mørk was back in her place after years of injury and adversity. Not because the superb top scorer from the EC led the team through the championship and into this dramatic final, but because the 29-year-old came with the added qualities that together make Norway the best in the sport.
Here we are spoiled for a long time. It has been many years since the extremely powerful product “handball girls” was created at NRK. Since then, TV2 managed to become the dream partner, before the girls were intercepted by TV3 / Viasat, which has long proven that they can also make this sport the best entertainment. Like this final of the European Championship a little crazy against France.
Throughout THIS championship, Nora Mørk has been so good that she is the best performing girl this year in Norwegian sports. This prestigious award is the last state channel that NRK has left with Norwegian handball offers, but this opportunity is very good in return:
- The annual sports gala is one of the most watched programs on Norwegian television.
So it’s stupider that NRK was also about to lose Nora before the party on Saturday January 9th.
BECAUSE AT THE SHRINK OF THE SPORTS GALA, NRK came close to doing one of the biggest sporting stunts this year. For a long time, the intention was to cut all prices based on the 2020 results at this TV party. Fortunately, that changed over time:
- In two weeks, you can vote for Nora Mørk, and that exact vote should only be missing.
In a great Norwegian sports year with many strong international results from girls across various sports, Nora and handball stand out.
It’s amazing what she and Norwegian women’s handball have accomplished.
IN RECENT YEARS, it has been very sad to be with Nora Mørk. Serious injuries, four operations, a brave deal with all the shit that being a female sports celebrity can entail, but the most painful illness in the immediate family. It takes a lot to focus enough on your sports work in between that, but Nora has done it:
- She became the top scorer in the European Championship and led Norway to the final with a wise game against Denmark.
Before daring with the shot, the passes and the advances that set the course for the final of the European Championship, Norway in a match where the handball girls eventually only got to be part of the fun because the defensive work was so good and goalkeeper Silje Solberg was so brilliant.
THE WOMEN’S HANDBALL IS NORWEGIAN SPORTS ‘biggest international success. After Norway with the 1998 European Championship gold won its first international championship, Norwegian girls have dominated this sport more clearly than almost any nation in any other Olympic team game.
You have to go to America’s actual position in basketball to find a similar balance of power. But it makes little sense to compare one of the national sports in a great power to women’s handball in a country of just five million people.
That makes the Norwegian medal series so special.
DURING THESE more than twenty years, handball girls have collected 8 European Championship golds, 3 World Cup golds and 2 Olympic golds. In 23 of 27 championships they have been to the semifinals, finishing with 19 medals in total.
It is during this period that the Norwegian approach to the game has developed tactically with handball. First of all, through an extreme pace increase that has created completely new physical demands on the players. But also through the anchoring of common tactical thinking in the group of players, where responsibility has shifted from the bench to the field.
This work to hold the individual player accountable began with former coach Marit Breivik, but previously passed to Thorir Heirgeirsson. He joined this national team in 2001 and took over as head coach in 2009.
The accessibility to TV-friendly handball has made it easy to follow this Norwegian approach based on knowledge of the sport. When it was the worst wave against Denmark before the break in the semi-finals on Friday night, Thorir was calmer.
Then he spoke in a low voice about “a small meter missing” in the transfer of the rear, and reminded players of the confidence in their own abilities that is always necessary to reach the agreed game in the future.
Or as he put it quite calmly about the players’ attacking tactics in the timeout right after Nora Mørk shot Norway in the match and the European Championship final erupted:
– How do you want it?
BECAUSE it is ONLY these two staunch coaches who have led the Norwegian heyday in handball, it has been easy to understand the strength of such a democratic and knowledge-based leadership. But this dominance would not have been possible without a sport with so many professionally strong local handball teams.
Nora Mørk herself comes from that environment. He grew up in tired little Bækkelagshallen with his mother as head coach and father as sports supervisor as his career quickly took off. The residential area at the best eastern end of Oslo is the traditional handball district of the capital. Impressively, new and good players have been constantly developed, as various local communities around the country work with handball players who maintain a high international level.
THEN, six Norwegian girls have also been named the best in the world at this sport during Norway’s golden age. First Trine Haltvik from Trøndelag in 1998, then goalkeeper legend Cecilie Leganger from Bergen in 2001, Gjøvik girl Gro Hammerseng in 2007, Vestfold Heidi Løke in 2011, Linn-Kristin Riegelhuth Koren from Ski in 2017 and finally Stine Bredal Oftedal from Nittedal just outside Oslo.
Good geographical distribution, that is, in a sport that before the football boom was by far the most important women’s sport in Norway, and which is now experiencing great growth again.
IT IS THIS national spread and growth that makes women’s handball so important to all Norwegian sports. The fact that this broad-based work can be combined with high-level player development and consistent international success makes pricing more sense.
And now is the time to present this year’s achievement award among Norwegian girls in 2020 to Nora Mørk.
