Fixing Knee Appearance: Options & Solutions

“I thought: it’s done. So I immediately returned the package, haha.” Estavana Polman can still smile, a day after missing out on the bronze at the Handball World Cup in her own country.

The lost match against France (31-33 after extra time) also marked the end of her international career. “Only now is the realization really coming. It’s a bit of a strange feeling,” admits 33-year-old Polman, who has put on the Orange shirt 207 times over the past fifteen years and scored 685 goals in those international matches. “But it’s okay, it’s been nice.”

Words to a similar effect come from the mouth of captain Lois Abbingh, who is the same age, who is also retiring as an international player after 241 games and 930 goals. “I am a bit more emotional than yesterday, because everyone has now said goodbye. Now you really know: this is the last time.”

Both say that they have been looking forward to the World Cup in their own country for years, where the trick was also to be physically good enough to take action. Problems with the knees were often a problem. “If you were to open our knees, it wouldn’t look good,” suspects Polman, who missed the Tokyo Olympics due to an operation.

“In the end, we really enjoyed the sport. It really is our passion. But we certainly went beyond our limits. That’s why we say to those young girls: ‘Take good care of your body and just take that week of rest’. I’ve never done that myself. I don’t regret it, no, but maybe I will answer that differently in ten years.”

For Abbingh, the urge to reach the tournament in the Netherlands was the main driving force. “I do think I crossed my limits. But as a top athlete you often do that anyway. Now maybe a bit extreme. I just really wanted to be here. I won’t let that be taken away from me. In the end it was all worth it. Absolutely.”

Both laid the foundation for their glorious careers at the Handball Academy in Papendal. “I was fifteen,” Polman remembers. “Training together twice a day and going to school in between. That was a fantastic time. Very fun.”

After successes with national youth teams, they also helped put handball in the Netherlands in the spotlight with the Dutch national team. The almost unlikely harvest: World Cup silver in 2015, European Championship silver in 2016, World Cup bronze in 2017, European Championship bronze in 2018 and of course World Cup gold in 2019.

“I think I need some time to really review everything properly again,” says Abbingh. “And I’m not just talking about the medals, but about all the memories you made together. It’s just been half of our lives. Very special.”

This also includes that damned fourth place at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro and the lost quarter-finals at the subsequent Games. “Fourth places are also part of it,” says Abbingh. “Of course you don’t forget those moments, but it also shapes you as an athlete and as a team. That has also been a process.”

“In the end we achieved that gold medal (in 2019). It also takes away the pain of the low points,” said the top scorer of that World Cup (71 goals) and scorer of the winning goal against Spain in the last seconds of the final.

Abbingh: “That gold symbolizes the entire journey. This year I realized that it is not self-evident to win five medals in a row. And we did that during that period. That is something to be very proud of.”

It is obvious to see that world title as the highlight of both careers. But Polman, who was named the best player of the World Cup at the time, says something different. “Just the whole path that we have taken: from actually having nothing at all to closing in our own country in Ahoy, full house, 9,000 people coming to watch handball, to us. Yes… it couldn’t be better. That is really the icing on the cake.”

Abbingh will always remember it. “Of course I will think back on how difficult the road to this was for me personally, but I will especially remember that we played handball in front of 9,000 people in a kind of party tent in Ahoy.”