Briefly about Mia
Mia's full name is Mia Terese Hundvin. She was born March 7, 1977 and raised in Bergen. Mia is 165 centimetres tall and has two tattoos: one on her left leg, the other on her right wrist. Mia didn't grow up with handball, but rather, with rock 'n' roll. In Bergen she worked weekends as a bartender in a local nightclub called Garage. At the same time she was a local handball star and one of the high-profile players of the national team. She studied archeology for one year, but gave it up. In 2000, she moved to Copenhagen. Later that year she married the famous Danish female handball player Camilla Andersen (separated 3 years later) and began media studies. Later she moved together with the Norwegian snowboarder Terje Håkonsen in Oslo and gave birth to their son Teo.

Although Mia is only 25 years-old and has played for The National Team for just two and half years, she is one of the most famous Norwegian handball players ever. This is a result of her great handball skills, elegant playing style and maybe most importantly; her personality and charisma, all of which make audiences, journalists and photographers love her. Mia has a natural talent for playing handball and being a media personality, and she's not like most handball players.

Handball player:	Mia Terese Hundvin
Nationality:	Norwegian
Birth:	March 7, 1977
Height:	165 cm
Weight:	55 kg
Family status:	Separated
Occupation:	Student
Position:	Left wing
Team:	Nordstrand
Previous teams:	Aalborg (2003-2004) Slagelse (2001-2003) FIF (2000-2001) Tertnes (1997-2000) Gjerpen (1996-1997) Tertnes (1989-1996) Løv-ham (1986-1989)
National Team debut:	February 15, 1998
Matches for Norway:	72
Goals for Norway:	174
Achievements:	2003: DC-gold, EHF-Cup-gold 2002: EC-silver, Winner of Danish Cup 2000: Olympic bronze, EHF-Cup-silver 1999: WC-gold (best player in the finals), NC-silver, Athlete award from Bergen 1998: EC-gold, Athlete of the year in Hordaland and Sogn og Fjordane

Mia's playing style
Mia Hundvin plays left wing on both her club team and the national team. Although she’s right-handed, she can also score when she sometimes plays right wing. Mia is shorter and slighter than most handball players, but she has turned this fact to her advantage. Her speed, flexibility, courage and boldness are evidence of this. Her technique is superior and she has a vast repertoire of shots. While she is hanging in the air, keepers often get confused when she simply changes her arm position, sending the ball in a different direction at last second. Sometimes Mia puts spin on her shot, creating even more problems for the keeper. Her shots are so technically perfect that people often called them art. Few other players are able to roll the ball across the floor, past a helpless keeper’s feet, after tricking her into believing the shot was going someplace else. Mia is well known for her marvellous lobs and making goals from seemingly impossible angles. She’s also well known for her impudent goals. A typical Hundvin speciality is to snatch the ball while on defence and rush alone towards the keeper to score an elegant goal. She’s also able to do flyers and several types of trick-shots.

It is often said that Mia has a Danish playing style. By that people mean: offensive, playful, artistic and technical handball and of course entertaining. An example of typical Hundvin entertainment was on display at the 1999 WC. At the end of one match she rushed towards the goal and was alone against the keeper. Instead of scoring herself she jumped and passed the ball backwards between her legs to her team-mate Kjersti Grini who scored. This is unusual for the Norwegian national team and it is typical that it was Mia and Kjersti who were able to do this. When Mia is scoring the audience loves her, but when she misses, some sports journalists criticize her for being too fancy, but this isn’t fair! When people dare to do spectacular things, they can’t always be successful. She’s willing to try things in situations that others won’t and is often able to score important goals. Mia is also a strong defensive player.

Mia's strength is that when she’s having difficulties, she can work through them. After a game in which she has not played her best and got bad reviews in the press, she often can play with great confidence and impress everyone in the next game. Usually she’s at her best in the most important games and at the most crucial points of a match. This is a mental strength many handball players can only envy. An example of her fighting spirit and her strong will to win is her contribution at the end of the Sydney Olympics, especially when she scored a spectacular goal that won the match and the bronze medal for Norway.

Mia playing on club teams
Mia started her handball career when she was 8 years-old. Her first club team was Løv-Ham (1986-89) and her handball career continued with the best club in Bergen, Tertnes (1989-96). With Tertnes she won gold in junior NC in 1993 and silver in 1994 and 1995. During 1996-97 she played at the club Gjerpen in Skien. Mia played well for Gjerpen, but she was young and homesick for her family and friends. She moved back to Bergen and although still a teenager, was serious thinking about not playing handball any longer. After returning to Bergen she decided to play for Tertnes (1997-2000) again and her motivation for handball quickly came back.

Following her return, everybody could see that she had grown as a handball player and was better than she had been one year ago when she left the club. Mia Hundvin, Kjersti Grini, Mette Davidsen and Janne Kolling were the stars of the team during her previous stint with Tertnes. Grini, Davidsen and Hundvin also played marvellously together on the Norwegian national team during the three seasons Mia played for Tertnes. After her return she became one of the top scorers, with 72-75 goals every season in the Norwegian league. By September 9, 1999 she was fifth place on the list of players with most matches (103) ever for Tertens. At the end of her career with Tertnes the team won NC silver in 1999 and qualified for the European Cup (EHF Cup) in 2000. Tertnes managed to get to the finals, but lost in the final minute. In the European Cup she scored 35 goals. During the 1999/2000 season she and Tertnes clashed over her contract. In her last year with Tertnes the newspapers were full of stories about her conflict with the club, a club she had served well for years. She was one of the main reasons people wanted to see the team play. The conflict was about her participation in a commercial, her salary and interpretation of her contract. The situation got worse when Tertnes' officials publicly criticized Mia and other players who were planning to leave the club. Cecilie Leganger, who now plays for the team Bækkelaget, didn't receive similar treatment from her club and the Norwegian Handball Federation, even though she participated in the same commercial project as Mia. As for her salary, Mia was making significantly less money compared to other players of her calibre and she believed that the club was not giving her the raise she had been promised. The conflict about her contract was resolved at the last minute before it went into the legal system, however, Mia left Tertnes one year before her contract expired, using an education clause. The contract allowed her to leave if she was pursuing an education not offered in Bergen. Mia Hundvin was one of five players leaving Tertnes in 2000, to continue her career in Denmark, causing Tertnes' audience level to drop dramatically. When Mia left, the club lost not only a popular player and entertainer, but also someone who was important to the team morale.
XX Scoring statistics (diagram)
XX Tertnes player (photo album)

After leaving Tertnes, Mia went to the Danish club Frederiksberg (FIF) and started media studies in Cophenhagen. So today she plays for the same team as her spouse, team captain Camilla Andersen. As with Tertnes, she still wears the number 9 on her jersey. Mia has started well with her new club, scoring seven goals in each of the first matches in the Danish league and she continues to impress. At the end of 2000 Mia was the number one scorer for FIF and she's reached an all-time been high on the league's scoring list. Fortunately, FIF qualified for the Champions' League (European Cup), but they weren’t so lucky regarding who they’ll have to play. They have a serious struggle ahead of them just to get a spot in the quarterfinals. During her time with FIF, Mia has played better, more steadily and scored more goals than ever. The main reason is likely a combination of her own improvement and the fact that Danish teams use the wings more than Norwegian teams.
XX Scoring statistics (diagram)
XX FIF player (photo album)
XX FIF-goal (animation)

The season 2001/02 Mia and Camilla started playing for Slagelse. Once again Mia is player number 9 on her club team.
XX Scoring statistics (diagram)
XX Slagelse player (photo album)
XX Victim (animation)
XX Slagelse player (animation)

Mia on the national team
From 1994-98 Mia Hundvin played on the junior national team and in several international championships Norway performed well. In February 1998 Mia made her debut on the senior national team. By the 2000 Olympics she had already played in many matches for Norway, so her match winning goal in the bronze medal finals at Sydney gave her a total of 132 goals in just two and a half years of playing with the Norwegian flag on her chest. While on the national team she wore the number 8 on her jersey and achieved gold in European Championships (1998), gold in World Championships (1999) and bronze in the Olympics (2000)
XX The National Team (photo album)

The European Championship’s in 1998 was Mia’s first international championship as an adult player, and after this tournament, everybody in Norway and many in other countries were impressed by her. The former champions, Denmark, were surprised when this unknown little player scored goal after goal while they was unable to stop her. Mia Hundvin was one of the most important players when Norway, for the first time ever, won an international championship in handball. Some said that Mia contributed with a more Danish style and gave handball a more modern image. Her strong debut gave her the title of "Athlete of the Year" from a newspaper in Bergen, and together with two other Tertnes players (Kjersti Grini and Mette Davidsen) Mia was named "Athlete of the Year" in West Norway by yet another Bergen newspaper. Following Mia’s success on the national team in 1998 the Norwegian media discovered that she was the most interesting and charming player on the team.
XX EC 1998 (photo album)

It’s difficult to repeat successful debuts in international championships, especially with one so young as Mia. She really had problems in the first part of the World Championships in 1999. It was easy to see that something was very wrong when she burst into tears during a game that Norway was winning easily. She was frustrated over her own performance, because she’s a perfectionist who sets high standards for herself. In interviews later, she revealed that she had been struggling with some personal problems during that period of her life. This may explain why the girl with the happiest face on the Norwegian national team suddenly was not smiling all the time. In spite of not being picked to play in some of the early matches in the championship and some bad reviews in the papers, she was able to turn the situation into something positive. Today Mia is known for her ability to get stronger through hardship. Her fighting spirit helped her finish the championship marvellously. She also got some help from her coach Marit Breivik, who had faith in her. Mia played fantastically in the semi-finals against Austria and again in the finals against France. Norway had to fight through four overtime periods before finally winning, and Mia was an important contributor to that win. In fact she honoured as the best player in the finals!
XX Mia goes for WC-gold (montage)
XX WC 1999 (photo album)
XX World Champion 1999 (animation)

The Sydney Olympics were Mia’s third international championships. Until then, she had won two of two possible gold medals. This time Norway was trying to copy Denmark’s achievement, becoming European, World and Olympic champions successively. Most people felt that Norway was likely to win as they had won the World Championship in 1999 and most of their matches leading up to the Olympics. Mia had played before the Olympics so she was picked first to play left wing, but she had been facing many difficulties for several months before the Olympics. She had a conflict with the Norwegian handball federation related to her participation in a commercial. At one point she was told she could be denied a place on the national team. It is difficult to believe! She also had to struggle with Tertnes, as mentioned before. In addition to that, the media was writing continuously about her private life. After she confirmed that she and the Danish female handball player Camilla Andersen had a relationship and then after they married, the media went crazy. Several weeks before the Olympics they wrote about problems related to she and Camilla being married and playing on different national teams. Neither Mia, Camilla, their team-mates nor their coaches felt that their marriage was a problem, but the press went on and on. Norway and Denmark would be meeting in the opening game and then again in the finals. Some papers said that Mia and Camilla might tell each other handball secrets and that they would have problems with playing rough enough against each other. This was repeated many times, turning a non-existing problem into an existing one. Mia, who is known to willingly answer questions for journalists, and doing so with great charm, became tired and irritated of being constantly faced with that type of questioning, long before the Olympics had even started. The focus on her fighting against Camilla in the opening game became ever worse when it became known that information about them being married was erased from the official Olympic site by Danish officials (without their knowledge). The effect was the opposite of the officials’ intention, because after that the international press became interested in the "love story". The American magazine Sports Illustrated, with 23 million readers, published a story, "In Love and War", about Mia and Camilla during the championship. After this, the Norwegian and Danish media intensified their stories about the couple’s private affairs. In spite of this strain, Mia played well in the championship, though both she and Camilla played anonymous roles in the opening game. Ultimately, Mia showed that she had improved her technique, and her repertoire of shots was even larger than before. Norway often plays little in their wings, but Mia managed to score many goals anyway. She often snatched the ball on defence and with great speed, scored before anyone could stop her. During the quarterfinals against Romania she played her greatest game of the Olympics. She scored six times and showed her ample technical skills. For example, she scored with an underarm shot, which isn’t usual from a wing position. Mia played with great confidence and looked as if playing handball was her greatest joy in life. She made it look so easy, but it really isn’t. The following match Norway played badly, losing to Hungary in the semi-finals. Only Kjersti Grini and Mia played well, in spite of not getting many balls from the backs, and so, Norway’s dream of Olympic gold was crushed. Of course Mia was disappointed after the game, but in typical Mia style, she smiled more and joyfully shouted louder than any of her team-mates when Norway won the bronze medal two days later, when they defeated Korea by one goal. In fact, Mia scored the match winner in the last minute when she jumped over a Korean player and managed to send the ball into the goal as she fell to the floor, where she was kicked in her face by the Korean goalkeeper. After receiving medical attention, the game continued with Mia smiling all the way. Later that evening, her eye was blue and swollen. It is typical Mia to be so brave in a critical moment and wanting to win so much. Her team-mate Kjersti Grini said after the game: "Mia is a hero. It is because of guts like this Norway was able to win in spite of some problems with our play." (translated from Norwegian). Normally a heroic deed like this would get some attention in the Norwegian media, but most told stories about the happy couple each of whom had won a medal. The sports journalists’ writings about her successful play were like footnotes compared to the Mia and Camilla stories.
XX Mia Hundvin in the quarterfinals (montage)
XX Mia scores the match winner (montage)
XX Olympics Sydney 2000 (photo album)
XX Match winner (animation)

Summed up, one can say that Mia, before and during the three championships, had to fight to be first choice as left wing. She won that fight every time and has gradually become a more important player on the Norwegian national team because of her creative playing style and fighting spirit. Her ability to be at her best in the most critical moments is the reason people say that she’s a player for the greatest occasions.

Hopefully this is not the last chapter in the story about Mia as player on the national team, but the fact is, a couple weeks after the Olympics, she announced that she would no longer play for the national team. The main reason given was the media’s lack of respect for her and spouse’s private life. She said that she’s too young to say she’ll never make a comeback on the national team, but it may never happen. She also said that she felt old (more than 30), and that she has been going through more than most people who are 23 years-old. She said this with a smile, in typical Hundvin fashion, but it’s easy to understand when we consider how her handball life and her private life have gone through many drastic changes and hardships in last year. Of course she needs a time out! Let’s hope she’s able to do what she usually does after difficult times - come back stronger than ever!

Mia in the mass media
Mia Hundvin became well known through the media before she had proven her capacity as one of the best handball players in Norway. She was born with a natural talent to be a media personality. Mia has most of the qualities that make a person interesting to the media, and these very same qualities characterize her as a handball player. But medals always have two sides and her special position as one of Norway’s most popular personalities has made the media coverage more difficult for Mia and her famous spouse - and there was little they could do about it!

Mia is good-looking and almost always smiling, so photographers love her. Her smiling face and fun remarks are infectious, and make her interesting to the media. Once she coloured her hair sharp red, which was not easy to overlook and she has piercing and easily seen tattoos that are also unusual for a Norwegian athlete. Her background as a part-time bartender in a local nightclub and being the daughter of a well-known rock musician make her very different from other Norwegian female handball players. In addition she is very quick-witted, bold and has an unconventional vocabulary. She also has strong opinions that she expresses directly, often making perfect headlines. The media have also been interested in the fact that Mia has worked as a model and once joked about posing in Playboy if she was paid well enough. She’s often been confronted with the Playboy statement, although she’s explained that she’d been joking. Mia’s participation in TV commercials also got much publicity, firstly because they’ve been shown several times and secondly because they caused conflict between her and Tertens, and later the Norwegian handball federation. Mia also got attention by taking her driver’s licence test on a TV series. Here the audience get to know her powerful temperament. In 1999 she worked as a program host a local TV station. In the series "Mia meets men", she interviewed local famous people. The same year Mia was voted "the most-sexy woman in Norway" by a magazine for men and the next year, the same magazine interviewed her and put her on the cover as "impossible to reach" (for men). This is not the only time she’s got many votes in similar polls. This has resulted in much publicity, because most of the women on such lists are models and Mia is the only athlete. She‘s often confronted with these dubious achievements when interviewed and she doesn’t like it. When the media mention that she was voted "the most-sexy woman", she tries to make a joke or seems a bit in despair over the fact that this seems more important to the press than her handball achievements.

An example of her quick wit could be seen at the Sydney Olympics in an interview with Norwegian TV2. The journalist asked, "Camilla has two golds, you only one bronze!?" She answered with a big smile, "but I won in backgammon and that‘s more important!" People experienced the playful Mia when she and Camilla entertained a handball audience with a sketch at the Dream Team event. In the sketch, Camilla pretended to ask Mia to marry her. This was a playful and brave thing to do considering all the media attention their relationship had faced. They are more examples of her quick-wittedness from an online chat during the Olympics. She chose to answer all types of questions, including the impudent and not too intelligent ones. Her answers to some of these questions were ironic and elegant. One boy asked her, "Do you shower together with the other girls?" (Hello!). Her playful and ironic answer to this prejudiced question was: "I’m lucky to shower together with the other girls and I think they are really afraid of me!" Her answer was intelligent, funny and spirited! Along with her quick wit, her unconventional vocabulary is typical of her. Adopting her local dialect she uses slang, swear words and some original self-made expressions. Her language is not vulgar, but fresh, personal and very precise. Mia is also known for her non-verbal language, including pantomime. When she was interviewed about the period when it became known that she was in love with another woman, she described how she used humour when she was with her team-mates. She said, "Look up!", all the while forming her right arm into a claw and trying to catch imaginary team-mates.

Mia has two very different sides. A local newspaper describes her like this (translated from Norwegian): "On one hand she’s described as bohemian, enjoying life, not interested in handball at all, tattooed, working at a nightclub and often surprising journalists with answers to their questions. On the other hand she was a perfectionist and ambitious teenager who was never the greatest talent, but she worked hard, with iron discipline and became one of the best left wings ever." Since Mia doesn’t fit the picture of how athletes are supposed to be, she is a hero to many people, although others condemn her. The combination of being female and an idol makes it easy for some small-minded people to criticize her for her swearing and that she honestly admits to liking beer. As a bartender she even has been selling it!

Mia Hundvin has received much media attention because of her handball ability and her unconventional style, on and off the court. This has resulted in many cover stories and some media have shown a lack of respect for her private life. In contrast to other Norwegian athletes, she has experienced attention usually only given to foreign movie stars and pop idols. In a period of less than two years, she has been subjected to four different examples of spite. Mia was used in nazi propaganda, though she, of course, does not sympathise with this ideology. They simply included her because they liked the way she looks. One crazy person made many telephone calls, harassing her with sexual insults, for a long period of time. As well, someone published fake nude photos of her on a website. Lastly, when Mia and Camilla married in Denmark, a Norwegian journalist showed TV viewers a fake photo of Mia and Camilla, both in white wedding dresses, and told bad and immature jokes about them. Luckily the TV station was forced to apologise, as the audience didn’t like that such disrespect was shown these popular athletes.

Fortunately, the story has another side. The very same fame that can sometimes be a big problem can also be used to do something good. When the Bergen police started a campaign against vandalism in 1998, they asked Mia Hundvin for help. Here image as a modern, not-too-perfect idol, with good values, made her perfect to reach the target group. Mia made an ironic remark to the local newspaper, "It’s nice to use my face to something positive!"

The qualities that make journalists and photographers love her are also an important part of her playing style. Her courage makes her to do unconventional things and she has the confidence to try again, even if she fails the first time. Her open and spontaneous style, on and off the court, makes the audience love her and it’s important to her team’s morale. In spite of her spontaneous behaviour and the fact that she wears her heart on her sleeve, she doesn't quarrel with the referees or make excuses; therefore she handles adversity better than most players. Instead of being depressed she gets extra motivated to play better in the next game. Her easy smile is an advantage when it’s important to forget a defeat and be motivated for success in the future. At the Sydney Olympics we saw an example of how big disappointment, when Norway lost the semi-finals to Hungary, turned into the greatest joy as the Norwegian team won the bronze medal. The media published photos and stories of both situations, because Mia was most disappointed over the losing the opportunity to fight for the gold, but two days later she was the happiest girl in Sydney when Norway won the bronze finals. And of course the media reported that Mia was very happy for Camilla when she won Olympic gold for the second time.

Perhaps the media interest in Mia can be explained by the expectations they had previously created for her. Before the European Championships in 1998, a newspaper introduced the new player on the Norwegian national team as a model who works in a nightclub, and they told the readers that she was high-profile media personality. At this time she was already famous in her hometown Bergen, but not nationally!

The Norwegian media has many things to thank Mia Hundvin for, so their contribution to the difficulties she faced in the period before, during and after the Olympics, by not respecting her and Camilla’s privacy, despite being warned, can be characterized as ungrateful and disrespectful. In addition to the couple, their team-mates and coaches of their club and national teams, asked the press to stop writing about Mia and Camilla’s private affairs. Some media tried to blame the spouses because they separately had told their story very openly in a few interviews, but this wasn’t fair. Their openness should have satisfied people’s curiosity and the "love story" should have lost its news value. But the sports journalists were not able to concentrate on sports even though the Olympics were happening! Something that was nice and natural was turned into something that needed to be exposed and represented problems. It’s important to remember that the media created new stories day after day, using information from other media. It seemed as if the couple was interviewed all the time, but in fact they said no to most journalists.

Montages

Montage: Mia scores the match winner (bronze finals at the Olympics 2000) Montage: Mia Hundvin in the quarterfinals (Sydney Olympics 2000) Montage: Mia and Camilla sketch Montage: Mia goes for WC-gold Montage: Mia in sitcom

Mia albums

Animations: Animations of Mia Photo series: Best of Photo series: Langt fra Las Vegas Photo album: Best of Mia Photo album: EC 2002 Photo album: Olympics 2000 Photo album: WC 1999 Photo album: EC 1998 Photo album: The National Team Photo album: Tertnes player Photo album: FIF player Photo album: Slagelse player Photo album: Aalborg player Photo album: Nordstrand player Photo album: Shooting Photo album: Interviewed Photo album: Not playing handball Photo album: Model Photo album: Actress Photo album: Dream Team Photo album: Mia and Camilla Photo album: Small photos Photo album: Moods Photo album: Hair colours Drawings: Drawings of Mia Photo album: Photo montages of Mia Wallpaper: Wallpapers of Mia Mia's own site has a photo gallery FIF-SUP' site has a photo gallery Picturesport has many photos of Mia.

Mia links
Mia Hundvin's own site (In Norwegian/Danish)
Aalborg's site Mia's Danish team (In Danish, but news in English)
Caroline's site (Some in English)
Ida's site
Commercial for Aalborg Video (Aalborg's site)
Scene 1 from LFLV-episode whith Mia Video (TV Zulu March 2002, from Danish fan)
Scene 2 from LFLV-episode whith Mia Video (TV Zulu March 2002, from Danish fan)
Mia in the presentation of the sitcom Langt fra Las Vegas Video (TV Zulu February 2002, from Danish fan)
Mia's matchwinner goal in the bronze finals in the Sydney Olympics Video
"I want it that way" Starring Mia og Camilla - from Dream Team(video)
In love and war [Scanned version] [Quick text version] (Sports Illustrated 2.10.00)
Mia on videoVideo interview in Norwegian (VG 26.9.00)