One of Iceland’s handball success stories is Ólafur Stefánsson, who played with the national team in 2008 when Iceland won the Olympic silver medal. He recently stated that his last game for the Icelandic national team will be against Romania in Reykjavík on Sunday.
The Icelandic national team. Photo by Geir Ólafsson.
In an interview in today’s edition of Morgunblaðið supplement Monitor, Ólafur tells reporter Einar Lövdahl that in the beginning he believed the only reason he was chosen to play with the national team was the fact the team lacked a left-handed player.
Ólafur started his career with Reykjavík club Valur in the early nineties. He has since played in Germany, Spain and Denmark as a professional handball player. In Germany he played with teams such as LTV Wuppertal, SC Magdeburg and Rhein-Neckar Löwen.
He played for AG København until the club filed for bankruptcy in the summer of 2012, according to Wikipedia. Despite not planning to play for the Icelandic national team after this Sunday’s game, Ólafur will continue to play handball. His new club is Lekhwiya Sports Club in Doha, Qatar.
As Ólafur is one of Iceland’s most beloved handball players of all time, a website has been set up for posting greetings from fans wanting to thank him for his hard work with the Icelandic national team, visir.is reports.
Handball is one of the most popular sports in Iceland and every time the national team plays a game a joyful excitement starts to build up in Icelandic society. The Icelandic players are seasoned players and many of them play in Germany.
JB
