Martin Vilstrup Jr is a bona-fide legend of beach handball.
Just in the past 12 months he has won silver at the 2024 IHF Men’s Beach Handball World Championship in China and promoted the sport at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games when he was named as part of the IHF Beach Handball Showcase.
The Dane has devoted his life to the sport making numerous sacrifices along the way like many of his contemporaries.
After qualifying through to the semi-finals of the Jarun Cup 2025, thanks to a quarter-final victory over Hiekka Hauskaa with his HEI Beachhandball side, the 35-year-old took time out to speak to us about a number of different topics.
Jarun Cup: You are through to the semi-finals, what is the feeling right now?
Vilstrup Jr: I’m feeling amazing. As a team, we looked at the game and said to each other; ‘who’s going to play in offence’? because the rest of us are playing in defence. So, at the moment, we have three guys running our asses off down there, and the goalkeepers are saving.
We’re super happy about it, but I have to say, I have huge respect for the young guys from Hiekka Hauskaa. When I was at their age, I was not that good, and they gave us a tough battle.
I have played the Jarun Cup five times and been in the final four times and lost three times. So my goal is to get there again and win it one more time.
Jarun Cup: Thanks to your preliminary group form, you finished top and received a bye directly into the quarter-finals, rather than playing a qualification game. This meant you had extra rest and got to play one of the last games under the floodlights. Do you like these late games?
Vilstrup Jr: As a team, we talked about the bye, as obviously, we wanted to win the group and wanted to go through with the benefit of not playing in the last 16. But I have to admit, it has been a long day as we played as we woke up around 7am and then waited until 8:30pm, just walking around, relaxing and seeing everyone else play. You kind of go into a ‘zombie’ mode but it’s all about the balance – if we had played around 3 or 4pm, it would have been very nice.
But, I like these late games because the stands are full. People are here watching as everyone has played their games. They’re not back in their hotels, apartments, having a rest before their own games. The sun has gone down, the lights are on and people are having a good time.
It just shows our sport off very well in showcases and environments like this, so a huge shout out to Jarun. It’s always a pleasure to be here.
Jarun Cup: You mentioned that you have played five Jarun Cup events now. What has been the biggest change for you since when you started and to now, in 2025?
Vilstrup Jr: It has developed in terms of everything around the games themselves. The organisers of the Jarun Cup are stepping up. There’s food trucks here and if you look at the courts, it’s not only court one that has everything around it. You have sponsors, nets behind all of them. The finals on Sunday are on TV and this year there is commentary too.
This year it’s the biggest-ever for men’s and senior women’s teams and been sold out. From my perspective, back in the day – maybe – the men’s teams were a little bit stronger than the women’s, but now, I’m seeing it is equal. The women’s teams and competition is super competitive.
It’s one of the strongest ebt tournaments for me, in terms of quality of the teams in both genders, not only the men’s.
For example, in our preliminary group we had a young Croatian side, we had the Serbians and then the Swedish guys, who are now in a semi-final. We also had GRD Leca – Spar who are the defending champions and who are also in the semi-finals. So the three that went through from our preliminary group are now in the semi-finals. That says a lot. All the other groups are also super strong and every quarter-final has been super competitive.
When I think about the Jarun Cup I think about good times and nice people. I would say it’s the best level for me of the ebt, alongside Camelot and some of the Hungarian tournaments.
Jarun Cup: The Jarun Cup is the third official ebt stage of the new season, but the first of the European summer, with many people calling it the beginning of the European outdoor beach handball season. As an individual athlete, aside from winning, what do you look for when you come to Zagreb for this event?
Vilstrup Jr: For me, personally, it’s a way of getting in shape. The Jarun Cup is huge for us and we want to win it, but I also want to get in shape for the national team through the ebt Finals and all the other great tournaments that are coming up.
It’s about testing my form. Am I where I want to be? Do I have to get back home in Denmark and work more for it? Is it in terms of my fitness or stamina? What is it that I can work on now that I am getting tested as a defensive player here?
Many people say you can only play specialist but I’ve also been playing a little bit of a ‘fake specialist’, so, for me, it’s nice to show that I’m capable of the other stuff. I actually started as a defender in the national team back in 2009 so it’s all around testing my shapes. What do I need to work on? Is my timing there with the players? Some of us know each other from the national team and from other clubs, so it’s a mix of all of that.
Jarun Cup: We have been speaking to players across Europe about how they organise their trips to Zagreb for the Jarun Cup…tells us a little bit about the preparation and organisation for your team…
Vilstrup Jr: The process this year has been me arranging everything. I know some of the (Danish national team) guys really wanted to play. I asked them, ‘guys, are you up for the Jarun Cup?’
They’ve been here before, and it’s always nice to go abroad, so I tried to collect a bunch of guys but I had a little bit of a ‘waggling’ (unsure) answers initially. Eventually I ended up with this bunch of guys, found the hotel for everyone, paid for that, looked at flights, arranged them and then paid the deposit for the tournament.
Once that was all done, I said ‘let’s have fun, let’s be good friends and enjoy the time together’. We collect some sponsors for ourselves and pay for my own pocket. It takes up a lot of time, a lot of work, but it’s worth it.
Jarun Cup: Finally, we noticed some unfamiliar ‘names’ in your line-up, including ‘Jonas T Bag’, ‘Simon Palle Snik Snak’ and ‘Mikkel T-Rex’. A closer look reveals they are your national teammates Simon Moss and Mikkel Just amongst others…
Vilstrup Jr: I had a night by myself where I didn’t know what to call the guys, so we called Jonas ‘T Bag’ because he normally always plays with his pockets out. ‘Snik-Snak’ in Danish means somebody that likes to talk a lot, but I don’t have a special name because I’m super boring (laughs), although my profile picture saved it for me.
I just wanted to have a great laugh with the guys, and they didn’t know. After the first two games, they went in and saw the score and said to me ‘Vilstrup, what’s wrong with the names?’. I said ‘guys, I was having a good time on my own in Denmark and it’s just me being silly’.