Karabatic and Jurack: German players of the year

The readers of the biggest German handball magazine, “Handballwoche”, have cast their votes. The winners are two participants of the current EHF Champions League season: Nikola Karabatic (THW Kiel) and Grit Jurack (Viborg HK). The two stars were selected Germany’s handball players of the year 2007.

The funny thing: the winner among the men is not a German player, while the winner among the women doesn’t play in Germany.

It was the first time ever that a German female player won who is playing abroad:

“I’m really glad, this is great news,” said Jurack who won in front of Nadine Krause (FC Kopenhagen) and goalkeeper Clara Woltering (Bayer Leverkusen).

For Jurack it was the fourth time to win after 1999, 2000 and 2001, but in these years she still played for Leipzig in the Bundesliga.

“This voting is something very special,” said Jurack, who was top scorer of the World Championship in France where Germany took the first medal since 1997. Jurack was the only German player voted in the Allstar-team.

Karabatic is the first foreign player to win since1992 when Mikael Källman from Finland was voted.

With Kiel, Karabatic won all possible titles in the last twelve months: CL, German title, German Cup, German Super Cup, EHF Champions Trophy.

“This is a very special award for a foreign player,” said Karabatic, who was also awarded MVP of the Euro 2008. Henning Fritz (Mannheim) and Torsten Jansen (Hamburg) follow Karabatic on the ranking.