Kerstin Kündig will lead the national team as captain at the home European Championships in Basel. She is proud of the development of Swiss women's handball.
At the end of 2022, Kerstin Kündig was very surprised to be one of the six nominees in the "MVP of the Year" category at the Sports Awards, finishing in 3rd place behind Roman Josi and Granit Xhaka. Among others, she left Lia Wälti, the captain of the women's national football team, behind. This recognition symbolizes the rise of women's handball in Switzerland.
"It's nice to see that the investment in women's handball has paid off," said Kündig, who got fit in time for the home European Championships after a knee operation in September, in an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency. "When you see the talent growing up, you can be proud." The investments included the launch of the academy at the OYM competence center in Cham. This is aimed at players aged between 14 and 20 who want to develop their handball skills alongside their training.
Unpredictable Croatians
The prospects are indeed promising. In July, the Swiss women won the title at the U16 European Open, the unofficial European Championship in this age category. Eleven of the 18 players in the European Championship squad are aged 21 and under. While major events were out of reach for the Swiss women for a long time, two years ago they made it to the European finals for the first time, helped by Russia's exclusion. Now the next step is to be taken at home in Basel by reaching the main round, for which the top two in each of the six groups qualify.
If everything goes according to plan, the third preliminary round match against Croatia next Tuesday will decide whether the Swiss women progress, as they are favored against the Faroe Islands on Friday and points would be a sensation against Olympic bronze medalists Denmark on Sunday. How does Kündig see the starting position against Croatia? "They're a difficult team to assess. Sometimes they're very good one year, then nothing one year. If you look at their squad list, they have a lot of players who play in the Champions League and are in the same team. That's a dangerous combination. I'm looking forward to their first games."
Kündig also sees positive aspects in the fact that Switzerland has a very young and therefore inexperienced team. "That can also be seen as an opportunity. A young player can very often almost only win. To be able to experience such a career highlight at the age of 17, 18 or 19 is gigantic. You can play freely and celebrate every positive action all the more."
Abroad as a logical step
At 31, Kündig is the second oldest player in the team. She has been playing abroad since 2020 and returned to Bundesliga club Thüringer SC last year, where she previously played from 2020 to 2022. In between, she briefly fulfilled her dream of playing for top Danish club Viborg. However, because the club made financial problems public, she accepted the offer from Bietigheim in mid-December 2022 - she won the league title and the national cup with the German team.
It was a logical step for Kündig to go abroad, but she first wanted to complete her Master's degree in medical engineering at ETH Zurich. She is now studying economics at the Fernuni Schweiz. "I was used to needing my brain alongside handball. In my professional life, I realized that I was starting to get a bit bored. I couldn't let go of handball between training sessions. I'm better when my mind is elsewhere from time to time. And having a business background is certainly not a bad thing for the professional world later on," says Kündig.
Can women in countries like Germany or Denmark, where handball is very important, make a good living from it? "It depends very much on the club. I would say that in the top three or four clubs in the respective leagues, you can make a very good living from it and put something aside," says Kündig. She believes that the knowledge that she can turn her hobby into a career will encourage even more Swiss players to follow this path - after all, half of the European Championship team currently play abroad. "We can look to the future with a lot of positivity," says Kündig, looking ahead.
SDA
