Welcome to Her Playground!
What’s on Her Playground?
Her Playground is an initiative launched by the EHF in 2025 to give women’s handball its own unique voice — a fierce, creative and fearless voice that reflects the game.
We showcase real women, real work and real wins. We don’t shrink from ambition. We encourage collaboration, unity and mutual respect.
Here on Her Playground and our Instagram and Facebook pages, find stories from handball and other sports, as well as highlight activities targeting the growth and development of women’s handball.
Why Her Playground?
Her Playground is more than a name. It's a place rooted in childhood memories, which can start a lifelong journey and love for being active, challenging yourself and simply having fun.
That playground can later become a court, a field, a track or a swimming pool. A place that brings together all that once kept you running around the playground with a big smile on your face.
For Olympic, world and European champion Allison Pineau, the first steps on the handball court were a life-defining moment: “Since I played on this playground for the first time, I never left handball.”
Meet your role models
Katrine Lunde
If the term “legend” could be used for only one player in handball, Katrine Lunde would be the one to earn it. The most titled player in the sport, Lunde has won every major title more than once — the Olympic Games three times, the World Championship twice and the EHF EURO and EHF Champions League each seven times. On top of that, she has a collection of eight silver and bronze medals, as well as one EHF Cup title. With exceptional longevity in her career, Lunde continues to define the game from her position as goalkeeper — her presence at the top stretches back more than two decades, and she is not done.
MORE ABOUT KATRINE
Estelle Nze Minko
A true character, a leader and a successful athlete: Estelle Nze Minko is a natural fit as a role model. Nze Minko has been part of many of the France national team's numerous achievements, since 2022 as captain of the side, and raised the Champions League trophy twice. She has stood atop the podium at the World Championship, EHF EURO and Olympic Games. Away from the court, Nze Minko has two notable ventures: One as founder of the V Box, a product that empowers and supports female entrepreneurs, and the other as a taboo-breaker, speaking openly about the menstrual cycle and managing that as an athlete.
Andrea Lekic
2013 IHF World Player of the Year Andrea Lekic’s individual impact on the game and longevity in career place her as one of the greatest, as does the fact that she is one of only four female players in the Champions League “club of 1,000” goals. Lekic has won the Champions League and celebrated a World Championship silver — one of just two medals in the Serbia women’s team’s record. Lekic also founded her own children’s handball academy, which has seen great success since its launch in 2013. The fact she finds helping the youngest in the game the most beautiful part of the sport reflects her fit as a role model.
Joyce van Haaster
Joyce van Haaster is a force in wheelchair handball, helping to shape the discipline as it becomes more broadly played and competitive. Van Haaster can hardly play a major tournament without earning an individual award and is an exceptional example of the kind of qualities promoted through the role models project. Van Haaster was part of the Netherlands Young Age Category teams before discovering the malignant tumour in her leg that would change her life. Gradually, she found her way back to handball. Outside the sport, van Haaster has her own business as a kinesiologist, “Balance of Joy.”
