‘Still be a little part of handball’ – Oftedal enjoying career change 

After retiring at the end of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games with gold, Norway’s former captain Stine Oftedal Dahmke took up a new challenge – television.

Oftedal joined together with friend and former teammate Nora Mork at the end of 2024 to work for Scandinavian television channels Viaplay and TV2 as experts at the women’s European championship.

And exactly one year after her television debut, Oftedal is back as an expert, working for Viaplay Norway and Sweden and watching Mork and Norway play at the 2025 IHF Women’s World Championship in Germany, along with her colleagues, host Gunnhild Toldnes, pundit Ole Erevik and reporters Regine Leenborg Anthonessen and Christer Sævig.

“I'm basically joining TV to watch Norway for the rest of the championship and try to make the best out of it, because it's a product that I love,” says the ever-happy and eager Oftedal to ihf.info sitting in the television studio at the Westfalenhalle in Dortmund while keeping one eye on the Norway vs Brazil main round game going on just a few metres from her.

“My normal and basic job here is in the studio, with the ‘expert’ role, at least that’s what they call me,” she jokes. “But that’s my role, I also have a few other things. I’m in the tunnel as a sidekick of the other reporter who is trying to feel the temperature [of the players] and bring them a little closer. This is the main thing for Viaplay Norway. I've been doing a little bit for the Swedish part of Viaplay and some interviews in general.”

 

As a player, Oftedal won everything: European, World and Olympic titles, plus the Champions League numerous times. She is a three-time World Champions, a five-time European champion and a gold medallist at Paris 2024. Constantly in demand, the Norwegian captain was nearly always last to finish with media duties following games, but determined to fulfil her requirements with a constant smile on her face.

“In the Norwegian national team in general, from the moment we come in, we get a bit of this media training as it's of mutual interest of both [parties] to make the best out of it and has always been my starting point,” says Oftedal about if she had any thoughts while playing about her post-playing media career.

“With Nora a year ago, the two of us together felt very secure and we kept a quite professional line. I'm really enjoying it as well here and feel very comfortable. To actively be inside a TV production, you see how much more work it is than just setting up a studio and someone talking on the screen.

“They work a lot. It’s so much background information. It's morning meetings. It's interviews. It's this and that. I really like that in Norway, we're privileged enough that we have had such good results that this team has basically been a Christmas tradition for years, and that's why it's possible to send such a great group of people (production staff and presenters) here to show it so well at home.”

As a player, Stine was well-used to an army of fans supporting her and her teams wherever she played and despite finishing her playing career, she still feels that warmth and generosity from the handball community in her new role – albeit one covering something she has given the majority of her adult life to.

“That’s a little bit of the beauty of it: I feel everyone has an understanding that things are different now, but I also still feel like I'm a part of it, which is very nice, I must say. This role is such a good way to still be a little part of handball, even though I don't play anymore,” explained Oftedal, who played 269 matches and scored 757 goals for Norway.

 

“It might be a cliche, but the one thing that I do miss the most is really being a part of this (Norway) team and that is weird, definitely. Being here, seeing them do all the things that I normally did and that I know so well. I know exactly what they're thinking. I know what they went through. I know how they build up towards the game. 

“Being such an outsider suddenly, that is weird, but at the same time, I also see it in a way that it was such an important part of my life, something that I truly cherish,” she adds. “Yes, I don't do it anymore, but it is also time for everything and this is also where I want to be right now; helping to put female handball out there as much as possible. That's such an important thing, and if I can help that, then great.

“I want more nations at a bit of a higher level so that we can have even more excitement around the top eight teams because this product has so much potential. It's taking huge steps when it comes to technical parts and the speed of the sport. There's so many aspects. All of us would love to push that in the right direction.”

Off the court, huge steps continue to be made too, not least with the continuation of the normalisation of motherhood and fatherhood for playing parents at events. And with a five-month-old baby, Amelie, Oftedal has the ultimate responsibility and role at Germany/Netherlands, those of a new mother.
 

“The Viaplay team here has been great with that because it's a different situation when you have a small baby who is completely dependent on you,” she says.

“It has been such a great thing, both here [with TV] but, also, if you are on the Norway team, there are so many mothers in this squad, so just to make that possible for a team, is one of the key success factors for Norway; that you can keep on playing, you can have a family and you get supported. Younger girls coming up see that and think, ‘ok. it's actually possible’, which is such a great thing.”

Some of those younger girls Oftedal refers to now enter a Norway team without coach Thorir Hergeirsson who retired from Norwegian duty last year and is not on the bench for the first time since 2001, Ole Gustav Gjekstad his replacement.

 

And it appears to be going well, with Norway blowing away all their opponents so far in their six games at Germany/Netherlands 2025 and sitting comfortably in the quarter-finals – with Oftedal having a front row seat to their last three victories since joining the Viaplay team in Dortmund.

“Thorir, over so many years, created a very special type of organisation in this team, the way he builds the team I've never seen anyone like him. It's very rare and special,” says Oftedal, who won IHF Women’s World Championship gold in 2011, 2015 and 2021.

“I know that Ole Gustav chose to take a lot from what Thorir already brought in and then put in his own thing. That's the perfect way to come into a team that already had success. I feel that he's taken over in such a good way and it seems like it's going quite okay so far. The reports that I hear from the players too are all good so far.”

One of those players is Oftedal’s former teammate Katrine Lunde, the 45-year-old goalkeeper playing in her final tournament after announcing her retirement last month.

“Is there anyone better?” asks Oftedal. “Honestly. Her mindset, her way of keeping her level over all these years. In a handball that is changing, she is changing as well, but just keeping her level so steady. It's really impressive. I've seen her at training constantly as well, and she just has something special mentally, she's so, so strong.”

So could Stine face an off-court battle for her expert role when her former teammate does hang up her shirt?

“Maybe. I have to be careful. Maybe I will advise her to keep on playing a little longer,” says Oftedal in her classic joking style.