Stars of the future to gather at Respect Your Talent Camp 2023

The 30 camp participants were named in the All-star Teams or as a Player of the Match at the Women’s 17 EHF EURO and EHF Championships in the summer of 2023. After attending Player of the Match events at the tournaments, they will now continue their journey on the RYT programme. 

The camp will focus on the ‘female player journey’ and focus on the most relevant challenges accompanying the transition from junior to senior level. It will equip them with the tools to enable them to have a sustainable handball career, deal with current and upcoming challenges, and prepare their bodies and minds for a long-term journey. 

Ambassadors Andrea Lekic, Anja Althaus, Carmen Martin and Jelena Grubisic will lead the participants through five stages: ‘navigating your journey’, by building a dual career; ‘fuelling your journey’, through nutrition, recovery and fitness; ‘stabilising your journey’ through mental fitness; ‘protecting your journey’, with sessions on sports law and anti-doping; and ‘sharing your journey’, through media.  

Lekic will be sharing her expertise at the RYT Camp for the third time after the 2019 and 2021 editions. “Education of young athletes makes me very happy and this is why I joined the Respect Your Talent programme. We, as active and ex-players can be great examples for younger generations, to show them what it means to play handball, to teach them that handball is not only the playing court but that there are many other things off the court which make them shine on the big stage.  

"For the young players, there is no better way than to learn from people who have experienced it all and who can teach them what is important for them. That's why I am very much looking forward to the camp, meeting all the young talents there and sharing my experience with them.” 

Martin, meanwhile, will join the camp for the first time: “I'm very excited to be part of the RYT Camp and expect the same as at the Player of the Match event in Kosovo this summer; to enjoy and to work on very interesting areas that are important in the talents' careers through good communication between each other. I'm looking forward to cooperating with the experts, listening to the talents' doubts and sharing my experience with them.  

"I believe that empathy is a key component in helping others, therefore I understand that sharing personal experiences can help talents a lot to anticipate and probably overcome future situations in a better way.” 

The participants will learn about how to build pre- and post-game routines, deal with pressure, sign their first professional contracts, get to know about forbidden substances, and how to shine in interviews and deal with criticism on social media. The camp will help the players to recognise the challenges of the early athlete’s career. 

Nutrition, regeneration and fitness is a new topic in the RYT programme and will be led by experts Tanja Sarenac and Maja Ivanovic. Other experts include Wolfgang Stockinger (dual career), Tijana Zivkovic (sports law), Hans Holdhaus (anti-doping), Bojana Jelicic (mental fitness), Ioana Patachi (social media) and Simona Margetic (media). 

Since 2019, the EHF’s RYT programme has been dedicated to helping aspiring handball players gather awareness, knowledge and skills alongside the game to become an even better, more complete athlete. 

Recognising that the game of elite handball is much bigger than the court itself, RYT helps young players to professionalise the holistic approach to their careers. Some of the world’s best handball players, supported by leading experts, inspire and instruct young athletes, covering topics such as dual career, anti-doping, mental fitness, media, nutrition, sports law, and regeneration. 

To date, more than 1,500 young boys and girls have participated in RYT activities, including around 150 on RYT Camps. 

RYT participants also get access to the new RYT App, to support their journeys.  

EHF Secretary General Martin Hausleitner said, “Many female team sports are on an unprecedented rise. Handball is one of them. Keeping the balance, staying healthy, and performing well in such a dynamic environment is challenging. This requires competencies. RYT wants to contribute to young players being better able to deal with handball’s manifold demands. And what better way to learn than with your international peers, and directly from some of the world’s best handball players and leading experts? This is the unique RYT Camp spirit.”