ESPN’s “Olympic Athlete,” Kathryne Bertine, writes about her experience this past August trying out for the US Women’s National Team Handball squad. Bertine is a former figure skater, rower, and triathlete who’s always had Olympic dreams and has been hired by ESPN to chronicle her attempts to try and find a spot on the 2008 Olympic Team.

The premise behind the writing assignment as highlighted at ESPN.com: “Maybe you can identify with this. Some ESPN.com editors were sitting around watching the two-man luge event during the 2006 Winter Olympics. "Hey, I could do that," one of us said. "Anybody halfway athletic could do that." At that moment, an idea was born: What would happen if a better-than-average-but-not-great athlete, who also happened to be able to write, tried to make the U.S. Olympic team in the Summer Games' equivalent of the two-man luge?”

Her article is easily the most detailed and lengthy piece on Team Handball I have ever read from a main stream US news outlet. Bertrine didn’t make the team, but she gives a pretty good description of the sport and the trials and tribulations of the athletes on the US Women’s National Team.

ESPN Article: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=olympianpart2
Her personal website: http://www.kathrynbertine.com/