Legendary Marit Brejvik decided in 2009 to retire from the Norwegian women's handball team after 15 years, and was replaced by Torir Hergeirson.
Regardless of the fact that the Icelander, who lived in Norway since his student days, was eight years in the professional team of that country, there was a lot of fear at the time whether Hergeirsson would be able to be even close to being as successful as Breivik, who said goodbye to Olympic and world gold and with four European crowns.
Another 15 years later, Hergeirson brought Norway the 2024th medal from the three biggest competitions, the 17th gold, with a triumph over Denmark in the EHF Euro 11 final, and decided to close an unreal circle on the bench of the world's best national team. And that by surpassing the performance of his predecessor, since six European, three world and two Olympic golds shone around his neck.
- I am so grateful that I was part of your stories - you were everything to me and you did so much for my career - said the legendary through tears Nora Merk, who followed the recently concluded championship due to her pregnancy as an expert consultant on Norwegian state television.
And, precisely the fact that Norway is without players like Nora and Stine Oftedal (after the Games in Paris ended her career) convincingly won the European Championship best describes the work Hergeirson did - many handball players came and went, but Norway always remained a machine.
In addition to all that, he also allowed the legendary 45-year-old goalkeeper Katrin Lunde that during the EHF Euros he leaves the national team to be with his nine-year-old daughter in his homeland.
- We have a lot of moms in the team and that is very important. If you give them the opportunity to create a family, have children, then they will get a lot - that's why it's important for us to enable such things - explained the Icelandic expert.
Hergeirson will also be remembered by Montenegro for two unforgettable finals from 2012 - the Olympic final in London, in which he celebrated with the help of his sisters Bonaventura and the European one in Belgrade, when the "lionesses" took revenge and wrote history. It will be remembered that one of the greatest coaches of all time lost only one of the seven European finals, precisely in 2012 against Montenegro and Dragan Adžić.
The story with Norway is over, is the coaching career too?
- Right now, I'm sure that I won't be in handball for a year, and after that we'll see - it will probably be something different from everything so far - said Hergeirson on his way out.
In his place, he will be on the Norwegian bench from the first day of 2025 Ole Gustav Gjekstad, another great coach, a man who was European champion back in 2011 with Larvik, and who won the Champions League three times from 2021 to 2023 with Vipers. Everything looks like an announcement of another 15 successful years of Norway...
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