The requirement to continue in the national team: Top position
Published 2024-07-25 16.57
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JONSERED. She is making her fourth Olympics and 17th championship overall.
The result in Paris could determine whether there will be more than one more championship for Jamina Roberts.
– The Olympics will be like a final exam.
Sportbladet has met the Swedish handball star and national team captain at home in her childhood neighborhood in Jonsered.
There are plenty of top players in handball both in Sweden and abroad who have handball in their DNA as their mother or father or another close relative played at the highest level.
From that perspective, there wasn’t much in Jamina Roberts’ background that spoke for her becoming a handball player, let alone one of the very best in the world.
Father James was a young sailor from Aruba in the West Indies who enlisted in Gothenburg almost 50 years ago. He stayed on land and became one of Sweden’s greatest bodybuilders of all time: 187 centimeters, 140 kilos, EC silver, WC bronze and one of Sweden’s first professionals.
Mother Gunilla is from Norrland and admittedly played a little handball as a junior. But when Jamina was two years old, the small family moved from Gothenburg to Gunilla’s hometown of Umeå, hardly known for its handball culture, and opened a gym.
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full screen Photo: Pontus Orre
– But after five years, dad got patchy and then we ended up here in Jonsered, Jamina tells us over a coffee at the craft bakery, which is set up in one of the disused factory premises in the old mill town.
– I grew up in an apartment 200 meters over there, says Roberts and points. Mom and Dad still live there.
Jonsered is located in the municipality of Partille and in Partille it’s handball, more precisely IK Sävehof – the world’s largest handball club.
– A friend from school who played handball took me to a training session when I was eight years old.
FACT
Facts/Jamina Roberts
Born: 28 May 1990 in Gothenburg.
Family: Partner Emil Berggren and daughter Lou, soon to be 4.
Current club: Viper Kristiansand (2022-)
Former clubs: IK Sävehof (-2014, 2016–17, 2002–22), Tvis Holstebro (2014–2016) Erdi VSE (2017–2018), Randers HK (2018–2020).
National team debut: 2010.
International matches/goals: 233/600.
Championship: 16 (EM 2010, VM 2011, OS 2012, EM 2012, EM 2014, VM 2015, OS 2016, EM 2016, VM 2017, EM 2018, VM 2019, EM 2020, VM 2021, OS 2021, EM 2022, VM 2023).
Greatest achievements: EC silver 2010, EC bronze 2014, Champions League gold 2023, Cup Winners’ Cup gold 2016, EHF cup gold 2015, Swedish champion seven times, Norwegian champion twice, player of the year in Sweden 2022 and 2023, all star team in the Olympics 2021 .
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A final of 16 championships
26 years later, Roberts makes his fourth Olympics and overall 17th championship. Only four Swedish handball players have played in four Olympics: Magnus Wislander, Staffan Olsson, Ola Lindgren and Pierre Thorsson.
She has the most championships of all Swedish women’s players (Isabelle Gulldén stopped at 15) and passes Paris Lindgren’s, Olsson’s and Tomas Svensson’s 16 championships. Only Wislander is worse with 18.
But the question is whether Roberts will pass Wislander.
– I have not said that one day or another I will quit the national team. But I think it depends a little on how things go here now, in these two championships, she says, referring to the Olympics and European Championships in December, even though her contract with the Norwegian big team Vipers Kristiansand only expires in two years.
There has been one final for Roberts during these 16 championships – European Championships 2010 which was her first major tournament and which ended with silver.
It has been ten years since the second, and most recent, medal – the European Championship bronze in 2014.
After then coming in 6-9 in most of the championships for a few years, the national team took a step in the Olympics in Tokyo when they surprisingly finished fourth. Since then, Sweden has finished fifth-fifth-fourth in the three championships that have been played.
– You want to win or at least get a medal. Should we come fifth and seventh in these two championships, it feels like we are a little too far away. Then maybe I can start thinking (about the future). You want to feel that things are moving forward.
“We are behind in terms of handball”
What do you need to develop now to take that last step and go to the final or grab a medal?
– With Anna Lagerquist out (cruciate ligament injury), we need to find the constellations and roles in our defensive game. When Anna was involved, she went up and locked the opponents and then we cleaned up a bit behind. Now we may need to work more classically and take turns to gain height in defence, says Roberts.
– We also need to find our way back to the fine counter-attacking game we had in the Olympics in Tokyo and the championship afterwards.
But it can’t be that hard, can it? Finding the counter play?
– No, but it’s a bit about running routes. Sometimes, for example, I play high up in defense and if I run on a counterattack, the edge runs the risk of falling behind and then we lose depth in the counterattack.
In the attacking set-up, the national team almost always press from the left, with Roberts on the left nine. The opponents have learned that now and Roberts is not given as much space as in the Tokyo Olympics when she had a kind of late breakthrough at world level.
– Then nobody cared about me or the Olympics. Now the opponents are more prepared. But they are welcome to be two on me and we will have an advantage on the other side.
When Tomas Axnér took over as the national team captain, he thought that Sweden was lagging behind physically and started a physical effort that was successful in the Tokyo Olympics and which has since been maintained and perhaps even improved.
– We are not behind physically, it is not where we lose the games anymore. We are behind in terms of handball. We haven’t been able to do that against the best teams. We have been too bad there, says Roberts frankly.
When Axnér took over in 2020, the 2024 Olympics was the big goal and Sweden can now be said to have a complete national team that has played together for a long time and where the framework is around 30 years old with lots of championships behind it.
– This summer will be important. The Olympics will be a test to see if we can take the next step or not. It will be like a final exam, says Roberts.
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full screen Photo: Pontus Orre
Robert’s own all star team with the best she has played with
Goalkeepers: Silje Solberg and Katrine Lunde.
Left sex: Camilla Herrem and Ann Grete Nørgaard.
Mittsex: Linn Blohm and Katarina Jezic.
Right sex: Nathalie Hagman and Katarina Krpez.
Left nine: Linnea Torstenson.
Nine thirty: Isabelle Gulldén and Marketa Jerabkova.
Right nine: Anna Vjachireva and Ida Odén.
Defender: Anna Lagerquist and Johanna Wiberg.
Flinck puts a plus on all teams and is betting on the Olympics
Group A
1. Norway
2. Denmark
3. Sweden
4. Germany
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
5. Slovenia
6. South Korea
Group B:
1. France
2. The Netherlands
3. Hungary
4. Spain
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
5. Brazil
6. Angola
Quarterfinals
Norway-Spain
Sweden-Netherlands
Hungary-Denmark
France-Germany
Semifinals
Norway-Netherlands
France-Denmark
Bronze match
Netherlands-Denmark
Final
France-Norway
The podium
1. France
2. Norway
3. The Netherlands
FACT
This is how Olympic handball is played
LADIES
Group A: Norway, Germany, Slovenia, Sweden, Denmark, South Korea
Group B: Hungary, Netherlands, Spain, France, Brazil, Angola
The four best teams in each group advance to the quarterfinals.
Sweden’s group stage matches (Paris)
- 25 July (21.00) Norway-Sweden
- July 28 (2 p.m.): Sweden-Germany
- July 30 (9 p.m.) Sweden-Denmark
- 1 August (11.00) South Korea-Sweden
- 3 August (16.00) Slovenia-Sweden
Quarter-finals, semi-finals and medal matches will be played in Lille on August 6, 8 and 10 respectively.
GENTLEMEN
Group A: Spain, Croatia, Germany, Slovenia, Sweden, Japan
Group B: Denmark, Norway, Hungary, France, Egypt, Argentina
The four best teams in each group advance to the quarterfinals.
Sweden’s group stage matches (Paris)
July 27 (19.00) Germany-Sweden
29 July (16.00) Sweden-Spain
31 July (16.00) Slovenia-Sweden
August 2 (2 p.m.) Croatia-Sweden
4 August (09.00) Sweden-Japan
Quarter-finals, semi-finals and medal matches will be played in Lille on August 7, 9 and 11 respectively.
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