Frank Løke (born 6 February 1980) is a Norwegian endurance athlete, TV personality and former

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball, Olympic handball or indoor handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of thr ...

player.

Career

Regarded as one of the best line players of his era, Løke played for clubs in Norway, Germany, Denmark, Croatia and Switzerland during his career. He was capped 186 times and scored 646 goals for the Norwegian national team, and was voted best pivot at the

2008 European Men's Handball Championship The 2008 EHF European Men's Handball Championship (8th tournament) was held in Norway from 17 to 27 January, in the cities of Bergen, Drammen, Lillehammer, Stavanger and Trondheim. Denmark men's national handball team, Denmark won the tournament ...

."Norway"
– ''European Handbal Federation (2008)'' (Retrieved on 1 February 2008) Løke represented Norway at every

World Championship A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game ...

and

European Championship A European Championship is the top level international sports competition between European athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs. In the plural, the European Championships also refers t ...

between 2005 and 2011.

Post-playing career

Following his retirement from handball, Løke has competed in several Norwegian reality TV-shows. He competed in the Norwegian celebrity format version of '' The Farm'' in 2017 and ''

Skal vi danse? ''Skal vi danse'' () is a Norwegian television series which has been broadcast on TV 2 and produced by Monster Entertainment since 2006. The series sees celebrities partner with professional dancers to compete in mainly ballroom and Latin dance. ...

'' in 2018. Løke won the reality competition ''71° nord – Team'' together with partner Rikke Isaksen in 2023. Løke has participated in multiple

ultramarathon An ultramarathon is a footrace longer than the traditional marathon distance of . The sport of running ultramarathons is called ultra running or ultra distance running. Various distances, surfaces, and formats are raced competitively, from the ...

ultra-distance cycling Ultra-distance cycling is the riding of any Cycle sport, bike race or route longer than a century ride, which is . However, such events are relatively common, so using a longer distance to define the category may be more useful, such as any race or ...

triathlon A triathlon is an endurance multisport race consisting of Swimming (sport), swimming, Cycle sport, cycling, and running over various distances. Triathletes compete for fastest overall completion time, racing each segment sequentially with the ...

and

quadrathlon A quadrathlon (or ''quadriathlon'', tetrathlon) is an endurance sports event composed of four individual disciplines. All four disciplines are completed in succession and the lowest overall time decides the winner. The World Quadrathlon Federati ...

competitions, including the Norseman Triathlon and the Östhammar Adventure Race. Løke climbed

Mount Everest Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at it ...

in 2021 and 2024, and K2 in 2022, becoming the third Norwegian to reach the latter's

summit A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used only for ...

Personal life

Løke's younger sister,

Heidi ''Heidi'' (; ) is a work of children's fiction published between 1880 and 1881 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, originally published in two parts as ''Heidi: Her Years of Wandering and Learning'' () and ''Heidi: How She Used What She Learned'' ( ...

, is also a handball player, having won the Olympic gold medal, two World Championships and four European Championships with the Norwegian national team.

References

1980 births Living people Norwegian expatriate sportspeople in Switzerland Norwegian male handball players 21st-century Norwegian sportsmen RK Zagreb players Norwegian expatriate sportspeople in Croatia Norwegian expatriate handball players in Germany Expatriate handball players in Croatia Norwegian expatriate handball players in Denmark Expatriate handball players in Switzerland SG Flensburg-Handewitt players TuS Nettelstedt-Lübbecke players {{Norway-handball-bio-stub