Athletes’ success in their chosen sport is the result of passion, hard work and skills. Passion drives them to continually work hard at keeping fit, training and improving their skills. Their passion for their sport is manifested not just on their actual performance in competitions but also in other things they do related to it.
For instance, reporting on Australia’s participation in the recent Junior Women’s World Championship held in Macedonia was made possible with information submitted by a handballer who has all the three attributes referred to above. The athlete is none other than Cathy Kent, who is the Goalkeeper of the Australian Women’s Team. Cathy who was on a competition season break attended the Junior Women’s World Championship to support the Australian team and to double up as a member of the Publicity Team. We received positive comments on the Team’s collaborative effort as well as a number of emails enquiring about Cathy. Hence, it is with delight that we acquaint you with one of Australia’s leading female handballers.
Cathy, who hails from Queensland, has been with the Australian Team since 2001. She has represented Australia in a total of 39 matches, which included international tours, tournaments and three World Championships – Croatia in 2003, Russia in 2005 and France in 2007. She relishes as her greatest moment playing against Macedonia in the preliminary round at the 2007 World Championship and receiving the ‘Best Player’ award. This award is usually given to a player from the winning team but was awarded to Cathy to acknowledge the brilliant saves she made.
Cathy was first introduced to handball when she was seventeen years old during a school sporting tour, while she was playing touch football at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra. Handball was something she had never seen before and straight away she fell in love with this relatively unknown sport to Australians. What made it even more appealing to her besides the fact that handball is incredibly fast and takes a lot of talent to play, was that handball is an Olympic sport and that it is a Professional sport for women in many European countries.
Cathy has two older sisters and one younger brother. They do not play handball but they have represented Australia in Ju-Jitsu. Before getting involved in handball, Cathy also represented Australia in Ju-Jitsu and was involved in other sports – enjoyed a stint in Queensland Rugby, was Captain of u16 Brisbane Basketball, MSN Cricket Captain, Regional Touch Football and Brisbane Futsal.
It was after an Australian Women’s Handball tour of Hungary in 2002 that Cathy was given the opportunity to stay on and play with the u21 Junior Cornexi team in Szekesfehervar. After only four months, she returned to Australia to play in the Oceania World Championship Qualifying Tournament which Australia won to compete in the 2003 World Championship held in Croatia. She was then contacted by a Hungarian/Danish lady, Hanna Menzi, and asked if she would like to play in Denmark.
Cathy played handball in Denmark in 2003-2004 for GOG Gudme. When she was not training nor playing, she was studying Coaching at the Sports School, Oure, and was Assistant Coach to an u15 junior Danish girls team.
After difficulties with getting a Danish visa for her second year, Cathy contacted a past Australian trainer, Niklas Harris who coached and lived in Sweden. He organized a trial for Cathy with a Swedish 1st Division women’s team called H65, Höör. She lived and played in Sweden for three years [2004 – 2007], part of that time was with two other Australian players, Raelene Boulton and Katia Boyd. She worked for the club as a cleaner before deciding that was not where she wanted to be in her handball career.
Cathy was given the opportunity to trial with a ‘Professional Team’ in the French League in La Rochelle. This was where Cathy signed her first fully paid Professional contract. Cathy considers her first year in France [2007-2008] as the best season she had ever had playing in Europe. She was named the Best Keeper with the most number of saves in the Division 2 French League, saving over 304 balls for the season.
Then in early 2008, Cathy signed up for a team in Paris called Cergy-Pontoise. Out of a number of clubs which offered her a contract, she accepted Cergy-Pontoise’s offer as she felt it is a great team with lots of potential and has an experienced Romanian/French Coach to train her and the rest of the team. Cathy also enjoys the excitement and the challenges in playing in the team with four Romanian and three Junior French national team player.
Since she was seventeen, Cathy had dreamt of playing professional handball so she is ecstatic that this dream had come true. She is also grateful that all her hard work and determination got her at the level she is now. These days, she loves the fact that when she wakes up in the morning, her job is to train and to play handball. When asked where she sees herself in the next 5 years or so, Cathy said she sees herself still playing handball overseas and hopes to play for Australia in two more World Championships. She thinks that she may stay overseas and be a goalkeeper trainer for a European team after her handball career. She also has a desire to come back to Australia and help develop handball further as she dreams that one day Australia would have a really strong handball league.
We are confident that in due time this dream will come true as Cathy’s passion for handball and strong determination are shared by many of the Aussie handballers. We are also hopeful that Cathy’s stellar handball story would inspire more girls to get involved and excel in the sport.
– Article by Violi Calvert
AHF Media & Public Relations
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