This is me: Olivier Krumbholz

This is me: Olivier Krumbholz

Here it is. The end.

The end of a long handball journey, which has taken me on a rollercoaster of incredible highs and depressing lows. I sat on top of the world just a couple of years after falling down to the gutter, but in the end, only the good memories remain.

I guess a lot about my life changed when I was 15. Before that, I was a happy kid in a happy family.

Both my parents were school sports teachers. We were a family of four — three boys and a girl. I have vivid memories of playing outside the family house with my brothers. Of going to the stadium for athletics. Though my dad had tried handball and basketball, athletics was his favourite sport.

But then it happened.

My dad passed away one afternoon, in 1973, and my life changed forever. I grew up five years over the course of an hour. I was completely distraught, but this event made me turn into a man much faster than I would have otherwise.

I made a promise to myself that day: I shall not bring trouble home. My mum was now a single mum, and there was no way I was going to make her already heavy burden any heavier. That meant working at school and also trying to find a way to be financially independent. And stop being a turbulent kid. 

Now, I had started athletics when I was 10. Remind yourself: that would seem pretty normal these days, but 50 years ago, being in a sports club at 10 was an oddity. But my parents insisted, being sports teachers, and I found it fun to have something to do after school as well. I quite liked athletics, to be honest, but let’s say I completely forgot about it the day I first tried handball.

Even now, it is hard for me to explain the reasons I fell for the sport. It just happened. There was a fun element to it that was completely absent in athletics. The fact that it was played as a team — that just appealed to me.

I had a good player career, in an era where making a living from handball was virtually impossible. There were two clubs in Metz back then, both playing in the French first division, and that was unique.

I was playing for ASPTT and I was a decent first division player. I am wise and I know I was never built for great things in handball. I was too limited as a player, but I still had a decent career.

I played in the France national team a couple of times, even though I did not play any major competition. I don’t remember much of these games to be honest, but I remember how I learnt that I was going to play for the national team.

Nowadays, everybody is waiting for the email from the federation to know they are going to play with the national team, but back then, the news was delivered by mail. Proper mail, in the mailbox.

And one day, just like any other day, I picked up the mail and there it was: the letter with the federation logo on the envelope.

I knew that was it. I made it quite late to the national team, in 1983, and it felt quite like an achievement, even if I knew that I was not good enough to remain in the team for a long time.

Not being too keen on keeping souvenirs, I did not keep much of them. No jerseys, no equipment, as back then, you had to give it all back when the national team week ended. 

Anyway, somewhere down inside, I had already started what would be my second — and most successful — life.

Playing for Metz Handball, every summer, the president asked us to coach the younger categories. He did not have much money to pay us. It felt normal to give a hand to help the club. That was not a massive deal either, as the U16 players I coached were only training once a week back then.

But no matter the frequency, I loved it. The fact I was able to help players making progress, to see the impact of the work we did together — that definitely rang a bell.

Of course, it also helped that I was quite successful. I started coaching in 1986 and, in 1989, we were playing the U16 national league.

The same thing happened with the Metz Handball women’s team. I stopped my player career in 1986, when I was just 28, to take over the A team, which had just been promoted to the first league.

The first season I coached, we reached the final of the Cup, and three years later, we were crowned champions. Not too bad for a start, eh?

I insisted on two things: I wanted my team to be one of fighters and I also focused on the things that my team could do. While a lot of coaches put a lot of effort on half-court offence, I thought that fast breaks and defence were also ways to score easy goals.

But, although the Metz Handball era was really helpful to build me up, it also changed my life for another reason. That was where I met my wife, Corinne. She was one of my players, and the daughter of former football coach Victor Zvunka.

She later told me that being in a relationship with your coach was not exactly the easiest thing she had been through — that I could be incredibly tough with my players, and even tougher with her. But our love survived, and Corinne has been with me through everything for the past 40 years.

She came from a family of football players, and that might have helped when it came to understanding I had to go away for long periods. But I tried my best to find the right balance and to see my children, Lucas and Quentin, as often as possible. 

I did crazy things, like driving back home in the middle of the night after a game just to be sure I would be there when they woke up.

Being a coach and a dad is an ever-learning adventure, but Corinne was always there by my side. She saw me leave the Metz Handball club in 1995 and take over the France national team three years later, in 1998, aged 40.

Honestly, I feel like all this period went very fast and I did not quite have the time to realise what happened. But it took me three seconds to say yes when the head of the federation back then, Jean-Pierre Lacoux, offered me the job. I mean, you cannot say no to the national team, can you?

Coaching France was a completely different job. Instead of coaching the girls every day for a whole season, you have them three weeks during the season and then four weeks around each major competition. In a way, you do not control everything they do on a daily basis, and you kind of rely on what the others do. 

But I managed just fine, I suppose.

Coaching France brought me some of the best moments of my coaching career. People often ask which medal I would keep if I could keep just one, and I always have the same answer: the gold medal from the Olympics in Tokyo.

When I exited the arena, I felt at peace. In France, I often felt that I was judged on whether I had won the gold medal at the Olympics or not. And for a long time, I had not. 

But then, on that warm summer evening in Japan, that was it. It felt like the circle was complete. Like nothing could top that. 

I found the motivation to try and make it double in Paris in 2024, but I had already won gold. Some of the pressure was off.

Tokyo, Paris, and even Rio almost did not happen, though.

As some of you will know, I was let go from the national team coaching position in 2013, and I probably hit one of my worst lows. But I also knew that it was not because I did not have the level to coach that team. It was more a political affair than anything else.

After that, I moved on to pastures new for three years. I had the ambition to coach a men’s team, but that did not happen — mainly because I did not have the connections in what I call “the other side of handball”.

I also dove deep into the organisation of the 2017 Men’s World Championship, surrounded by young and motivated people that I had never met before, and it gave me a new breath of life.

And then, the phone call came. Could I help the national team qualify for Rio 2016, as they were currently without a coach? Was I ready to dive again, knowing that some of the players had been pushing for me to come back?

I did not hesitate for one second. I felt like my journey with the France national team was not over — that there was still some boundaries to push.

We made it to Rio, winning the Olympic Qualification Tournament in Metz, of all places. Then we went there, won silver and it was the start of the terrific series that the team is still following right now.

And that is the thing that perhaps surprises me the most about my career — the fact that it lasted so long. So many coaches are sacked from one day to the other that I consider myself lucky I was able to coach the national team for 20 years.

It did not go without a hitch. Some choices made were tough on the human side of things, but decisive sports-wise.

There were some girls who felt they deserved more respect for their careers when I told them France did not need them anymore, and they are still resentful for that. But every decision I took, every move I made, was for the national team’s good. Nothing else.

My mother passed away one year after the Rio Olympics, in 2017. I have never been the most sentimental of persons, and doing things to make my parents proud has never been something I think of. 

But it happens now, from time to time. I think of them when the team wins a medal and I think they would be proud of what I have achieved.

But most of this story is now finished. I chose to retire from the national team. I am 64 and it is time to pass on the torch. 

Will I miss it? Not at all. Going to the EHF EURO in December is not on my schedule at the moment, but I must find the time to go and buy a couple of good bottles of wine so I can watch the games on TV and drink a glass or two with my wife. Because this is what my life is about now. 

The circle is complete, and it is time to sit down.

October 2024