Lunde takes family break from EHF EURO

Following Norway’s opening victory over Slovenia, the 44-year-old flew home to Norway to pick up caring for her nine-year-old daughter Atina.

Lunde’s husband is Serb Nikola Trajkovic, a football coach, who is currently coaching RK Mladost in his home country.

“It's difficult when both work in sports, a handball player and a football coach, while we are parents – in our own countries,” Lunde told Norwegian TV2. Usually, Atina lives with Lunde in Kristiansand, where she plays for three-times EHF Champions League winners Vipers. In the preparation for the EHF EURO, Lunde was allowed to train in Kristiansand to take care of her daughter.

Then she travelled with her team to Innsbruck and played the first match against Slovenia, before returning to Kristiansand to collect her daughter and then joining Trajkovic in Serbia. But next weekend, for the main round in Vienna, Lunde will return to the team. Until then, in both matches of the preliminary round, her position between the posts was and will be taken by Eli Marie Raasok.

The 28-year-old Raasok was extremely happy to have her EHF EURO debut.

“Maybe I would not have had the chance to play this tournament, if Katrine was not going home. So I am glad to have this opportunity. It was very fun to play. I was anxious and nervous before the start. When I got to play a few minutes, all the pressure was off my shoulders,” Raasok said after the second match, against Austria.

Everything was planned well ahead and agreed by head coach Thorir Hergeirsson.

“That's how we had to do it to make it happen. The alternative was that Katrine didn't join us at all,” says Hergeirsson. “We still have two good goalkeepers and the team has been prepared for it.”

Lunde is extremely happy that everything could be arranged – and especially thanks Hergeirsson in all perspectives: “He's a good person and he has been doing really a lot for women’s rights. He was the first one who said it’s OK, we can give birth and they make a programme that you can bring the children. You know you can get pregnant and then you can come back again, because this is what we love. Just because you have a child, it should not be the end of your career if you don’t want. That’s really great. I feel that some other teams and countries are following after, that makes me happy.” 

For Hergeirsson, integrating mothers in his team has become absolutely normal.

“We have a lot of mums in the team, it’s very important. If you give them opportunity to create family, get children, they have a lot of things to receive. So it’s important for us to make these things possible.”

In general, the Icelander believes that this is an important signal for women’s sports.

“This is a holistic approach and we have been working on that for 25, 30 years. Now they have a chance to live how the boys have done before, playing professional in the clubs and then they can make the career much longer than before.

“They can have one child or two and can still play in top level international and also in the national team, but then we, the national team and the clubs, have to do some arrangements for them. You know, if it’s not going well at home or it’s problem somewhere in different areas, you can’t be in top sport. So, we have to cooperate all these areas to get a good policy,” he says.

Clearly, for Lunde and her team, that cooperation is paying off with an unusual, but valuable, work-life balance during the EHF EURO.

Photos © EHF/kolektiff