Iceland's most popular handball trainer to train in Bahrain national team

“I decided to take on this project, and I’m very excited about it. This is a certain kind of adventure,” says Guðmundur Guðmundsson, one of Iceland’s most beloved handball trainers. He is changing scenes and will be training Bahrein Men’s National Team.

Training his third national team

Under his command the Icelandic Men’s National Team won many victories. Including winning a silver medal on the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and a bronze medal in EURO 2010 in Austria.

In 2014 he took over training Denmark’s National Team, which won an Olympic gold in Rio de Janeiro last year. 

Over the years Guðmundur has taken on training other teams on the side, along with the national teams. Such as Icelandic teams Vík­ing, Aft­ur­eld­ingu and Fram, and also German teams Dorma­gen, Rhein-Neckar Löwen as well as German team GOG.

Bahrein like another world

He is only hired to train the team for 7 months. “I wanted the contract to be only for a short amount of time, finish certain assignments and see how I would like it. I and my family came here [to Bahrein] yesterday and we have been looking around here […] It’s like being in another world here in Bahrein and the people are very friendly.”

“Everything is open in regards to what I’ll do next. It just depends on what I will want to do. I’ll start working around 20^th of August. The first assignment is training the team for three weeks, then again in November, and then constant training in December and until the Asian Men’s Championship starts in January.

I realise that the Bahrein is not the strongest team in the world, but I see a lot of potential in it. There is a will to advance and I think this project ant this place are both very exciting.”