No, not the drummer with boy band Hanson, this guy’s a Danish handball player.
So is half the population. What’s so special about him?
From Helsingør and nicknamed the Hammer (every time he scores for his club AG Copenhagen, they play ‘U Can’t Touch This’ – an incentive not to score, you would think), like his father Flemming, he has played for the national side since the age of 20. He’s just picked up the 2011 IHF World Player of the Year award – the biggest individual accolade in the game.
That’s impressive … so how would I recognise him?
Besides his pretty smug expression, he has long and greasy hair quite similar to the Hanson brothers, who he might just be a distant relative of after all, as they supposedly have Danish roots.
He sounds like he’s cruising for a bruising.
Well, kind of, but he’s also quite big 196cm tall and weighs 96kg – so he’s not exactly the kind of guy you would want to piss off.
I see. Would I have seen him away from the handball field?
Probably. He’s quite attention-seeking and you could say that commercial opportunities are like passes from his teammates – he never misses one. So much so, it’s been a long-running joke with some radio hosts at P3, and probably others as well, because during a major championship his goofy face is everywhere.
What kind of commercials?
Pretty much everything from Intersport and Head and Shoulders to Oral B toothpaste.
Head and Shoulders – are they going for the greasy look now?
Apparently so. He does wash it in the commercial though, so maybe they’re thinking more about the before and after angle.
That sounds about right. Anything else?
After playing for FC Barcelona for a while – who claim they “discovered” him – he’s back in Denmark playing for AG Copenhagen. He apparently missed the enthusiasm for the game over here, or maybe it was all those free male grooming products.
