Ambros Martin: “One of my life dreams came true”

Statements from the Official Post-Match Media Conference

Bronze Medal Match: Norway vs Russia 28:33 (15:18)
2019 IHF Women’s World Championship

Sunday 15 December 2019
Park Dome, Kumamoto, Japan

Thorir HEIRGERSSON – Head Coach, Norway (fourth place)

First of all, congratulations to Ambros and the Russian team, they were the best in the game and deserved the bronze medal. 

For us, it’s been an experience for many young players. It was a little bit of a new team for us with many players out, but the team done a very good competition, but now we go home, train hard and come back stronger.

Ambros MARTIN – Head Coach, Russia (third place: bronze medal)

Thank-you very much Thorir and Norway for this championship and for this game today. We knew that even though you have players that are injured, important players not here, you made a fantastic job.

I really want to see you, together with Russia, in the Olympic tournaments, fighting and getting the chance to go to the Olympic Games because handball needs teams like yours.

About this player sitting next to me – what can I say? This player made one of my life dreams come true. It was not possible the gold, but the bronze tastes the same, especially when you play against Norway. 

Thank-you very much to my team for the match and for the bronze, I think, as like Thorir said, we deserved this and were the better team today, with all respect to Norway.

I think today, handball gave us back what we had lost in the semi-final; the sport today was fair, meaning that the players deserved from the very first moment, to be in the final and fight for gold.

Thank-you very much to the Japanese Handball Association and fans because you made us feel like we were at home. We didn’t miss anything. For me, I could stay here a long time and I hope this longer time will also be in July (for the Olympic Games).

Arigato. 

Kristine BREISTOL – Player, Norway (fourth place)

It was a really tough game for us. We knew that Russia was one of the best teams here and we had to play our best if we had any chance and today, we let them score 33 goals and that’s going to make it hard to best Russia.

We have been fighting hard as a team for the whole tournament and I think, when we look back, we can be really proud as a team and we will fight even harder to make it better next time. On behalf of all the girls and Norway, we also want to thank Japan for a really good championship. 

Kseniia MAKEEVA – Player, Russia (bronze medal: third place)

I want to say thank-you for this country, for this competition and for all my players on my team and Norway too because it was a hard game, really tough.

I am so happy we took a medal, but of course, we wanted gold, not bronze.

We had one mistake, one game against Holland and, of course, we will learn from this mistake in the future. 

And I hope we will come back to Japan (for the Olympic Games).