Goalkeeper Niklas Landin from Bundesliga club THW Kiel is the first professional to be voted World Handball Player of the Year in two consecutive votes.
The International Handball Federation IHF announced the results of the 2021 election. Landin received 24.12 percent of the votes cast, just ahead of Sweden’s Jim Gottfridsson from league rivals SG Flensburg-Handewitt, for whom 23.87 percent of those entitled to vote voted.
The 33-year-old Dane Landin won the German championship title with THW last year and was world champion and Olympic runner-up with the Danish national team. The exceptional goalkeeper was also world handball player in 2019. In 2020, the election was canceled due to the corona pandemic and numerous season breaks.
Spain’s Talant Dujshebaev, Slovenia’s Ivano Balic, France’s Nikola Karabatic and Landin’s compatriot Mikkel Hansen had won the trophy multiple times, but had never been world handball players twice in a row.
In the women’s category, Danish goalkeeper Sandra Toft from French champions Brest Bretagne Handball won the election. The Danish national coach Nikolaj Jacobsen, who led Bundesliga club Rhein-Neckar Löwen to the championship title in 2016 and 2017, won the coaching rankings. Jesper Jensen, coach of the Danish women’s national team, made the complete Danish success in the IHF election perfect. His team finished third in the World Championship last year.