Norway is, for the first time ever, at this year’s Racketlon World Championships, fielding a national team!
With Nordic neighbours Denmark, Finland, and Sweden all having great pedigrees in the sport, and Norway being a very athletic nation, the lack of racketlon in Norway has always been surprising.
But it is now well up and running, after having been set up by British player Joel Durston, who moved to Norway in 2018, and two others during COVID – the perfect time to set up a new sport!
There have now been six tournaments, including one Challenger international tournament. The success of this has led to another international tournament, in September, and for it to be upgraded to IWT status.
The national team cements Norway’s place on the racketlon map, but it is far from the first taste of racketlon experience the team members have.
The female player, Victoria Thi, well and truly caught the international racketlon bug after playing the Norwegian Open (and domestic tournaments in Norway before that), going on to play in Prague, Club La Santa, Helsinki, Warsaw, the World Doubles and Nordic Racket Games in Denmark, and the Swiss Open. She has four silvers and a gold to her name, including an excellent silver in women’s elite doubles with Pauline Cave in Lanzarote.
She says, “I played badminton and tennis as a child. Took a long break, but now I’m back with both and that’s mainly inspired by racketlon. My friend and I came across racketlon totally randomly and had never heard of it. I checked it out and thought this sounds like the coolest sport ever, as we both love racket sports. We found this local tournament and decided to pick up all the sports and practice for it. That was the greatest discovery ever!”
On the World Champs, she adds, “I’m excited and prepared for really hard competition. I’m looking very forward to playing in a team and how that’ll feel, as I’m used to playing individually.”
Team captain Ola Ulmo entered the men’s B at last year’s World Championship, before he even started playing regularly in Norway! Despite this kind of baptism of fire, he fared reasonably well among the fierce competition. Just months later, he took a strong third in a strong packed C draw of 32 in Prague. This year, he has played in Poland, taking the gold in the mixed B doubles with Victoria, and in the World Doubles and Nordic Racket Games.
Another team member is Henrik Håkansson, a former regular at the top of the international scene and two-times teams World Champion with Sweden in the noughties! He has long lived and worked in Bergen, becoming a Norwegian citizen over six years ago, long inactive in the racketlon world but now ready for a fresh racketlon challenge.
The team is rounded off by Bo Platzack, a strong badminton and squash player, and Filip Westgaard. Both have taken up racketlon in just the past 12 months, but are already very keen, having set up regular training sessions, with Ola too (the other two live too far away), and having played in Denmark earlier this year.
In Denmark, Bo teamed up with Ola in a very strong Senior 40s Doubles, very competitive in all three matches (all went to tennis), and Filip, a recently retired semi-pro footballer in Norway’s second tier and now PE teacher, took silver in the Men’s D. For someone with a background only in tennis really, he has made great progress in the other sports to be one of the strongest players in Norway.
He says, “I am originally a football player, so football has always been my sport. When COVID-19 caused football to stop, I played tennis 4-5 times a week all that summer and have played tennis 1-2 times a week since then. So tennis is the racket sport I have a background in.”
“I saw a post on Facebook that there was going to be a racketlon tournament in Mysen, and I became very interested. So then I started playing squash, badminton, and table tennis. I’m a sports instructor, so I try to fit in some badminton sessions before and after teaching.
“Racketlon is a fantastic sport for everyone who loves rackets. It is very fun that it requires a lot of versatility. I hope the sport grows in Norway and that more people join in the future.”
Watch out for Norway in the Challenge Cup at this year’s World Championships and feel free to say “hei og velkommen!” to the players.
