Jamina Roberts Breaks Wislander’s Record: What’s Next?

Roberts breaks Wislander’s record – and stops?

HALMSTAD. In a week, Jamina Roberts will start her 19th championship – and break Magnus Wislander’s record.

Now she is flagging that it could be the last.

– If we finish seventh, this will be the last one, she tells Sportbladet.

The women’s EC squad a year ago was the most seasoned championship squad in Swedish handball since the senior men of Bengan Boys in 2003 went to their last WC (and the golden era ended with a 13th place).

For this year’s WC, they are going with an even more experienced team, since seasoned Filippa Idéhn, Mathilda Lundström and Anna Lagerquist, with 23 championships in total, have been brought back to the national team by Tomas Axnér.

And no one is more experienced than Jamina Roberts.

Participated in Sweden’s only two medals

In the World Cup opener in a week against the Czech Republic, the left-back will enter his 19th championship and thus break Magnus Wislander’s own Swedish record of 18. Roberts doesn’t usually like to talk too much about records like this, but says:

– Of course, I’m proud of myself, that I’ve managed and hung in there. It comes up more and more when the people you play with just get younger and younger. If you talk about something that happened ten years ago, they went on leisure-type activities. Of course, you become more and more aware that you have actually been around for a long time and that you have some routine you can lean on, says the 35-year-old when Sportbladet sits down with her at the hotel in Halmstad where the national team is loading up for the WC.

Roberts made his championship debut with the European Championship in 2010. Since then, Sweden has participated in all but one tournament (WC 2013) and Roberts has not missed a single one (see fact box below). She has been part of the women’s national team’s only two medals in history, the European Championship silver in 2010 and the European Championship bronze in 2014.

In recent years, the question of whether the upcoming championship is her last has been justified.

– In the past I have always answered no. Now I don’t know. It depends on how it goes. If we’re like seven, this is the last one.

Don’t believe in the 2028 Olympics

The national team has finished fourth or fifth in the last six tournaments.

– Say we were to win the World Cup, then you get bloody teeth.

But then you can finish on top, right?

– Yes. But it’s still more motivating to continue if you perform well than to get there (to the World Cup) and feel like we’ve taken two steps backwards. Then it feels like a very long way to a medal and then I don’t know…

– I am 35 and I will play here for another ten years. I’m not going in thinking this is my last championship. But I understand that the question comes and every day you get closer to the last.

If you finish fifth in the WC then?

– Then we will hear from you later in December (laughter).

Do you need to go to the semis to feel like you want to continue?

– I think it depends more on the performance than the result. So how it looked, how it felt.

Olympics 2028 – can you even imagine?

– It is a long way until then. It must be qualified, it must be trained at Playitas and it must be done one with the third. I would have liked to have been at the Olympics again, but maybe not all that before. No, I find it hard to believe that I am participating in an Olympics in 2028.

But first a 19th championship repeat awaits. This time with two games against Denmark, first in Naestved this evening and then in Halmstad on Saturday.