Cathrine Svendsen was part of the Norwegian team that surprisingly won a bronze medal in the 1986 World Championship in the Netherlands, and she regards this as the highlight of her career. This would turn out to be the start of Norwegian handball success. In addition to Svendsen’s two silver medals at the Olympics, she played in three other World Championships, and after being placed sixth at Korea in 1990 won another bronze medal in 1993 in Norway and was placed fourth in 1995.
Svendsen was a left-handed hard shooting back and scored 921 goals in 234 appearances for Norway between 1985 and 1996. She played for the clubs IF Borg, IL Vestar, Lunner IL, Bouillargues (France), Larvik HK, Tertnes Håndball and Pors HK. She won the national league with IL Vestar in 1989 and won the cup with Larvik HK in 1996. She retired after that but made a comeback in 1997. After her playing career, Svendsen took part in the first season of the popular TV show Mesternes mester. She was educated at Norges Idrettshøyskole and worked in the recruiting business for several years.
Norway