If there is one nation which has more than its fair share of rising stars in European handball in 2023, there is no doubt that this “award” would go to the Faroe Islands. For the first time, the men’s team qualified for an EHF EURO and hopes to stamp their mark in Germany next year. The U19 and the U21 team made it to the quarter-finals of their respective World Championships – both narrowly missing the semi-finals.
The Faroe Islands were also represented in the All-star Teams of both competitions, both times with their playmakers who were also the top scorers of the World Championships: cousins Oli Mittun at the U19 and Elias Ellefsen á Skipagøtu at the U21.
Ellefsen á Skipagøtu moved from Sävehof to Kiel right after the U21 World Championship. He arrived in Germany with Hakun West Av Teigun, who joined EHF European League winners Füchse Berlin – and both are already part of the senior squad.
“We played a great U21 tournament at the beginning, but in the end, we were very disappointed that we missed the semi-finals, our ambitions were higher,” said Ellefsen á Skipagøtu.
But what is the secret of success in the Faroe Islands? “The passion for handball runs in our families,” says Ellefsen á Skipagøtu, who just turned 21 before the World Championship in Germany and whose mother Gunn is president of the Faroe Islands Handball Federation. His brother Roi is also part of the U21 team as well as two of his cousins, including U19 World Championship All-star Team member Mittun.
“I fell in love early with handball because my father played the sport; I liked it from the start. I think this is the same for my teammates, because we are quite a small country.” The population of the 17 islands in the Nordic Sea is only 52,000 people.
“In the Faroe Islands, the halls are always open, we were going there every day, taking some friends. We played just for fun, but we got better and better. We are still friends, we are a true team; it is fun and amazing to be able to represent our country in competitions such as the World or European Championships with your friends,” adds Ellefsen á Skipagøtu, describing handball as a “family business”.
At the age of 17, he left his true family and joined Sävehof in Sweden from Faroese champions H71 Hoyvik. In 2021 he earned the championship trophy and was named MVP of the Swedish league one year later.
“I realised that I had to go abroad to develop myself further. The league in the Faroe Islands was just too bad. It was absolutely the right step at the time. All my national teammates left early, either to Denmark, Sweden or Norway. Sävehof gave me the chance, and it went really well. We became champions in Sweden, I was able to gain international experience in the European League, that was very important. But the club also knew from the start that Sävehof was just the starting point for me,” says Ellefsen á Skipagøtu.
