After making her senior debut in September 2019, Romania line player Lorena-Gabriela Ostase has gone from strength-to-strength for her national team, playing eight games for her country in the 2019 IHF Women’s World Championship and then a further five at the Women’s EHF EURO 2020, where she narrowly missed out on an All-star Team place.

Despite that first game coming  just over 500 days ago, a 27:24 European Championship qualifying win over Ukraine where she scored once, it feels like she has been in her national team forever, such is the ease in which she took the step up from the younger age teams, where she won gold at the 2014 IHF Women’s Youth World Championship and bronze at the 2016 IHF Women’s Junior World Championship.

The 23-year-old had been part of the Ramincu Valcea Centre of Excellence in her early career, but has found her niche at CSM Slatina, a club only formed in 2009, but coached by former national team line player Victorina Bora – who made nearly 100 appearances for Romania, including a seventh-place finish at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia.

Despite the experienced coach, though, it is fair to say the CSM Slatina are not one of the big clubs in Romania – that title is taken by CSM Bucuresti, Valcea and others. However, following Ostase’s continued development at the very top level, fans know who CSM Slatina and Ostase are with offers reportedly made for her to leave the club from the town of around 80,000 people, west of Bucharest.

For Ostase though, the only concern she has is with her national team in Podgorica, Montenegro, as they prepare to face Norway in their opening Tokyo Handball Qualification 2020 – Women’s Tournament 3 match.

“Right now I am with my national team and all my thoughts are about this,” said Ostase to ihf.info when asked about her career with CSM Slatina – the first-ever player from the club to represent Romania – and any future developments.

“In our country we don’t play every week as usual, and we need to play a tournament now but have only been playing every two or three weeks,” she explained about the preparation for the tournament. 

“It’s hard for the physical [conditioning] and [we also] don’t stay in the feeling of the games, but we need to accept this pandemic situation and we’re in a good energy and looking forward to a great fight against Norway and [against Montenegro] on Sunday – it’s amazing, because it’s for [qualification to] the Olympic Games and it’s a dream for every player.”

By 21:30 CET this evening, Ostase could already have qualified for the Olympic Games with a win against Norway, and it would be another step on her path with the country which has seen many famous line players represent the national team, including one right now.

“It’s amazing because I work with one of them, Crina [Pintea],” said Ostase about continuing the trend of strong players in her position at national team level, before admitting she does not have one particular player she looks up to, rather using the breadth of skills on show to form her own identity.

“Every player is different and I am different,” she said. “I try to steal [something] for everybody, every type of player. It’s a feeling. As a line player you need to have a feeling and maybe sometimes eye contact with some players, some key players in your team and then you have something.

“I want to keep my level high and I want to experience all the things at the highest level, like the Olympic Games, the European Championships and these tournaments.”

If Romania fail to win tonight, a loss or draw will still see them in consideration for an Olympic spot as they prepare to take on Montenegro tomorrow, a team where current Romania coach Adrian Vasile was until just before the European Championship, as assistant.

“He is young like us and understands the team. He has a good energy and gives us a lot of information,” said Ostase about Vasile, who will take charge of his first game this evening against the Norwegians.

“Norway will be a great fight. They have many different players and play very differently to Montenegro. Norway run very fast and have a lot of speed and Montenegro are so powerful.

“It’s hard, because we play [two games] in less than one day, we have a short time to recover and to get more information about Montenegro because it’s on Sunday, but these are the Olympics and it’s a dream.”

So what would it mean to qualify for Tokyo 2020?

“Oh my God, after this question in my head there are a lot of emotions,” said Ostase, visibly overcome with strong feelings. “I feel like my heart is beating so hard, just thinking about that. If we make it, it’s going to be extraordinary.”

And her message to the famous Romanian fans who cannot be in the behind-closed-doors event in Podgorica?

“I spoke to my roommate about this here,” she said. “If they were here with us the energy of the fans would be the eighth player for us, [together] we are all eager for victory.”

Photo: Romanian Handball Federation