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Sport in Iceland

The people of Iceland enjoy many types of sports like football, athletics, golf, basketball, tennis, volleyball, swimming, chess but the most popular sport in the country is handball.



Handball is considered to be the national sport and their national team is considered as one of the best in the world especially after taking the silver in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Iceland is also great at producing chess grandmasters that include Friorik Olafsson, Margeir Petursson, Jon Loftur Arnason and Johann Hjartarson.

The Icelandic football team reached its first major tournament, UEFA Euro 2016, becoming the smallest ever nation to qualify for a major tournament. Not only that, they surprised everyone and reached the quarterfinals. In 2017, they became the smallest nation by population to ever clinch a World Cup berth and will make their debut at that major tournament in 2018. When it comes to football, the biggest international name from Iceland is Eiour Guojohnsen who plays for Chelsea FC from England's Premier League as well as for FC Barcelona in La Liga.

Icelandic athletes have also participated in the Olympic Games since 1912. They missed the next four Summer Olympic Games and then returned in 1936 and have been participating ever since. As far as the Winter Games are concerned, they first joined in 1948 and have been participating ever since except in 1972. They are one of the earliest Olympic nations but only received their first medal in 1956 from Vilhjalmur Einarsson who took the silver for Men's triple jump in Melbourne, Australia.

Below are details of sports, sporting events and sports people related to Iceland. Is there something missing? If you know of something that should be listed here, please let us know.

Popular sports of Iceland

Traditional Sports of Iceland

Iceland Sporting Success

Great athletes from Iceland

Iceland Sports trivia

Iceland at major events

Past sporting events events hosted in Iceland

Upcoming sporting events in Iceland

Annual sporting events held in Iceland

Sporting Facilities in Iceland



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