IHF names Thorir Hergeirsson and Valero Rivera '2012 World Handball Coaches'

European handball coaches, Thorir Hergeirsson and Valero Rivera, have been named '2012 World Handball Coaches' by the International Handball Federation.

The announcement follows a voting (one for coaches of women's teams, one for coaches of men's teams) conducted by fans, the media and an IHF expert jury in which both coaches received one third of all votes respectively.

Icelandic Thorir Hergeirsson has been at the helm of the Norwegian women's national team since 2009. In 2012 he led Norway to gold at the Olympic Games and silver at the EHF EURO in Serbia.

Norway are furthermore the reigning world champions.

Valero Rivera was the coaching mastermind behing Spain's world championship title in January this year.

He had been coaching Spain since 2008 and resigned following the world championship success to take on a new role as the head coach of the Qatar national handball team.

In the women's voting Brazil's Danish-born coach Morten Soubak came second and Dragan Adzic, coach of EHF EURO champions Montenegro, finished third.

Denmark's men's coach Ulrik Wilbek came second behind Rivera. Third placed in the men's voting was Slovenia's Boris Denic.

For more information, please visit the IHF's website.