Coaches: Knut Ove Joa, Ellen Bredal Oftedal

 

Key players: Henrikke Hauge Kjolholdt (Right wing), Mia Svele (Centre back)

 

Qualification information: Women’s 17 EHF EURO 2017 – Runners-up

 

History in tournament: 2006-08: DNQ, 2010: 2nd, 2012: 3rd, 2014: 13th, 2016: 4th

 

Overview

 

As the runners-up at the Under 17 European Championship in 2017, Norway enter the 2018 IHF Women’s Youth (U18) World Championship as one of the biggest threats to take the title. Adding the recent record of the current Youth generation to Norway’s history in this event, the Scandinavian side only appear as even stronger favourites.

 

In the relatively young World Championship, first held in 2006, Norway have taken two medals and contested the semi-finals three times. In their maiden participation in 2010, Norway made it straight to the final, finishing with the silver medal, which they followed up with bronze in 2012. They dropped to 13th place in 2014 before returning to rank among the top sides at the most recent edition in 2016. At Slovakia 2016, Norway made it to the medal round but missed out on a piece of silverware, ranking fourth after suffering a 30:32 defeat to Republic of Korea in the 3/4 play-off.

 

The 2000-born generation of Norway players have already shown they have the potential to add to this medal tally, given the result at the European championship last summer. The Scandinavian side made their way through a challenging tournament at the event in Slovakia, taking wins against Spain and Serbia in the preliminary round, and suffering one defeat to the hosts. In the main round they beat Romania and lost to France, but managed to book a place in the semi-finals nevertheless.

 

Norway beat Hungary with a commanding 26:21 result in the penultimate round, before losing to Germany, 18:23, in the final. Henrikke Hauge Kjolholdt was named in the All-star Team as the best right wing.

 

Led by co-coaches Knut Ove Joa and Ellen Bredal Oftedal, Norway travel to Poland 2018 with long-term goals in mind.

 

“We want to develop as a team and as individuals. With this as our main focus, we hope to play good handball and that this will bring us results,” say coaches Ove Joa and Oftedal. “Many of our players participated in the European championship last year and, with one more year of training, we hope to show even more quality in the games in this World Championship.”

 

The coaches agree that their playing group, which includes defending champions Russia, Japan, People’s Republic of China, Netherlands and Argentina, will be an interesting one.

 

Prior to the World Championship in Poland, Norway have taken part in a practice tournament in Romania in June and will travel to Sweden to play at the Scandinavian Open end of July.

 Follow Norway on the official federation website, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. 

Group at Poland 2018
Group C: Norway, Russia, Japan, People’s Republic of China, Netherlands, Argentina

 

Games at Poland 2018

All times local

Tuesday 7 August: NOR-CHN (10:00)
Thursday 9 August: NED-NOR (18:00)
Friday 10 August: NOR-ARG (16:00)
Sunday 12 August: JPN-NOR (18:00)
Monday 13 August: NOR-RUS (20:00)

IHF & World Championship Social Media

Follow the Poland 2018 IHF Women’s Youth World Championship on our website, on IHF Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, as well as on the official event website, Facebook and Twitter channels.

 

Photo: Norwegian Handball Federation/Svein André Svendsen