15.06.2007, 02:16
Long Pause for New Viborg Star

Norwegian international, Kristine Lunde, may miss most of next season with a serious shoulder injury. Viborg's sports director, Michael Hansen, talks to eurohandball.com.

Long Pause for New Viborg Star

Danish CL side, Viborg HK will have to wait a long time for one of their new players. Norwegian international Kristine Lunde, coming from Aalborg DH with her twin sister (Katrine Lunde, goalkeeper) will have to stop for nine months. The 27-year-old backcourt player has been suffering from a shoulder injury for most of last season. Now it turned out to be so serious and she had to be operated.

The operation was carried out on Thursday, but Lunde will miss at least six months – maybe nine months. It also means that she will definitely miss the World Championships with the Norwegian national team in December, just as the first half of the Danish season. In addition, she can’t play in the first group stage of the Champions League. She must support Viborg to qualify for the latter stages where she might already play.

Considering reinforcement 

“Of course, we are first of all sorry for Kristine. The fact that she cannot play for some time comes second,” Viborg´ s sports director Michael Hansen told Eurohandball.com.

“Now the coaches and I will decide whether to get a new player for the squad. This could be a player from another club, but also one of our own young talents. We are going to take our time to make the right decision, however. We are not going to act spontaneously in a hurry as we are not in a crisis. We have the probably best playmaker in the world, Bojana Popovic, and a young talent, Jane Schumacher as substitute. In addition, we have two extremely competitive players in the left back and two on the right back position. We are not in desperate need of players.

“On the other hand, we have to take in consideration the tight schedule next season. There will be two group phases in the Champions League on top of the Danish league and the Danish Cup. We need quite a number of players, but we are not in hurry. All top players have a contract with other clubs already and this will obviously not change in a month, so we might as well take our time,” Michael Hansen added.

TEXT: Peter Bruun