Runar

Sandefjord's handball rivalry runs local rather than national: Runar and Sandefjord Håndball meet in the 'Byderby'. Runar-gutta, as the club is known, grew out of IL Runar, the city's wider sports club, with the handball department formed on 7 January 1949.

The club's peak came in the 1990s, when four Norwegian Championship titles arrived in six seasons under coaches Leif Gautestad and Bård Kristian Tonning, with Swedish coach Roger Carlsson brought in to help see the mid-decade titles through. A fifth Norwegian Cup followed in 2025, thirty-two years after the first, won in 1993.

Frank Løke, a world and European champion, played for Runar across two spells, the first from 1998 to 2003 and a brief return in 2016. Christoffer Rambo came up through the club before moving on to spells abroad, including at BM Valladolid, and returned to Sandefjord in 2021.

Runar have twice reached the semi-finals of a European Cup, in 2012–13 and again in 2024–25, results that mark the club's best runs on the continental stage.