In the aftermath of an exceptional gold medal victory, Norway trio Veronica Kristiansen, Kari Brattset Dale and Camilla Herrem shared their thoughts on the 29:21 win and the full Paris 2024 experience and three major themes emerged from the interviews.
Tale of the match
Kristiansen: It was an amazing atmosphere and I felt that we could use that to our advantage as well and give us a lot of energy. We knew what they would come with in their attack, so we got control in that regard. We were really prepared and fighting the whole way.
Brattset Dale: We knew they would come out hard and kept calm, knowing we could come back quickly. Having the two-goal lead at half-time was important to have a good feeling before the second half and then just kept going.
At half-time, we talked about them not finding me so much in the first half and the defence was hard on me, but the opportunities would come. They had to cover Henny and Stine, so then it gave room for me.
Herrem: The way the game started, we went “oof”, you have 27,000 people cheering on France and they had a great start. But we managed to find a way back into the game and then the second half was amazing.
We had a calm in the team, we had such a good attack and defence and when we didn’t do our job, we had Katrine in goal.
Tactical dominance
Kristiansen: We’ve build this defence stone by stone and then we had Katrine Lunde, who was amazing, so we were a real unit. I feel that we didn’t have the same pressure as before, the pressure was on them.
Brattset Dale: It’s a crazy feeling. I felt that we’ve been so solid throughout the championship and this game and we just built on this momentum. I’m so proud of how we managed to play in defence, it really was a medal built on defence, I think.
Herrem: We are normally two running teams and with that come some technical faults, throwing the ball away and they had eight counter-attacks on us. We talked about that at half-time, needing to be better at that and create good chances, otherwise they would run over us.
I felt that we had good control in defence, we were scoring goals one-against-one, we were safe and calm. We had a plan for everything they would do against us, tactically, everything was clear.
Culmination of the journey
Kristiansen: I really felt that we deserved it this time and have been fighting throughout these Olympic Games. We had a bad start, of course, but since then we’ve raised our level and have been really good.
To finish with Stine at Györ and win the Champions League was amazing and to be there with her today, I’m really happy for her. I don’t know anyone else who deserved to finish her career this way more than her.
Brattset Dale: We worked so long for this medal and we felt that this was our time. It was about ourselves and we enjoyed it a lot more than the other times. We knew that we wouldn’t get it because we deserved it, we knew that we had to go and get it.
Herrem: I’m so happy for my entire team, because we haven’t had a gold since 2012. You should feel privileged to just play here, be in this team and the Olympics, but now we can stand here and look at the gold medal.
Some of us have been playing together for 14 years and to do this with them, I’m amazed.