Norway secured the largest win in the history of the quarter-finals in the women’s handball competition at the Olympic Games, with a 32:15 fantastic performance against Brazil, sealing a place between the top four teams in the competition for the 10th consecutive edition.

The Scandinavian side will face archrivals Denmark in a fantastic match on Thursday, with a place in the gold medal match at Paris 2024 on the line.

PARIS 2024 OLYMPIC GAMES
QUARTER-FINALS
Norway vs Brazil 32:15 (16:8)

In nine apperances in the women’s handball competition at the Olympic Games, Norway had never finished lower than the fourth place, at Atlanta 1996. That means the Scandinavian side has always made the semi-finals, a record they were aiming to preserve in their tenth appearance in the Olympics.

And they did that in superb style, with an absolutely fantastic performance in defence, powered by goalkeepers Katrine Lunde (seven saves for 47% saving efficiency) and Silje Solberg-Osthassel (four saves for a 36% saving efficiency).

But it was not necessarily all about the goalkeepers, rather than the fantastic display from Thorir Hergeirsson’s side, who handed a rest to all of his key players while the match went entirely Norway’s way, from start to finish, as the Scandinavian side took an early 5:1 lead and never looked back.

The experience and depth Norway had, despite missing key line player Vilde Ingstad, rubbed off on their excellent performance in this quarter-finals, as the Scadinavian side created a 16:8 lead at the break, with Brazil failing to really get anything going in their attack.

In fact, the South American side only had a 38% shooting efficiency throughout the match, with the off night never helping the Pan American champions, which could only score in double digits in each of the halves.

That meant Norway, which had a fantastic defensive performance, could play exactly the way they wanted, creating easy chances on fast breaks for their pacy wings, as that could be easily seen in the number of goals scored in this way – six out of nine shots. Therefore, there was no surprise that the Scandinavian side had two wings as their best scorers, with Marit Rosberg putting six goals past Brazil and Camilla Herrem adding five more.

The gap grew bigger and bigger, as the record for the largest win in history in the quarter-finals, also held by Norway, which had the two largest previous wins – 33:20 against Sweden at Rio 2016 and 28:16 against Romania at Sydney 2000 – was under threat.

And indeed, Norway pressed until the end, to secure a 32:15 win against Brazil, beating their own record by four goals, but also limiting their opponents to the lowest number of goals scored in the history of a quarter-final, held by Romania, also against Norway, in that 16:28 loss in 2000.

Norway now advance to the semi-finals and will fight for a place in the final against Denmark, the team which they won against in the EHF EURO 2022 final and in the semi-final of the 2023 IHF Women’s World Championship, which will be a showdown for the ages.

Brazil are now finishing on the eighth place, but performed admirably, capturing minds and hearts alike, and will head home with newfound ambition after some excellent performances at Paris 2024.