A bright future beckons for ‘Little Nikola’
The world of handball is looking forward to April 2016 – because if all goes to plan in that month the first child of Nikola Karabatic, with the gender unknown to date ‘Little Nikola’, will be born.
The current World Handball Player announced the news on Sunday and regardless if the baby is a boy or a girl, everyone hopes for another handball world star – maybe someone who will lead the French back court at the 2036 Olympic Games.
What is for sure, is that Karabatic and his child would definitely not be the first successful family affair in the world of handball as many children have stepped into their parents’ footsteps.
The perfect example is the All-star Team at this summer’s Junior World Championship in Russia: French world champion Melvyn Richardsson was awarded Most Valuable Player; Spain’s Daniel Dujshebaev was awarded best left back.
Richardsson and Dujshebaev? Yes! Exactly 20 years ago, the fathers of Melvyn and Daniel were part of the All-star Team at the World Championship 1995 in Iceland: Jackson for France and Talant for Spain. Both were named World Handball Players of the Year some years later, both are coaches now, both forwarded their genius handball genes to their boys.
And Talant Dujshebaev can even be double proud: His older son Alex is his opponent next week in the VELUX EHF Champions League top clash between Vive Tauron Kielce (coached by Talant) against HC Vardar Skopje (including Alex as a player).
This father and son-duo even cross swords at the next EHF EURO: Alex wearing the jersey of Spain, Talant as the Hungarian coach.
The same happened in the preliminary round of the World Championship 2015 in Qatar, when Valero Rivera sen. (coach of Qatar) faced his son Valero Rivera jun. (player of Spain).
Other sons were coached by their fathers in national teams - and sometimes even became Olympic champions: Tamas and Lajos Mocsai for Hungary (i.e. at the 2014 EHF EURO or the 2012 Olympic Games).
While the Mocsai family left London empty-handed, the Kljaics returned highly decorated from the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta: Father Velimir, who died in 2010, was the coach, his son Nenad the line player of the Croatian national team, which wrote sports history by taking the first team sport gold medal at Olympic Games for their country by winning the final in Atlanta against Sweden.
Sons, who followed in their fathers’ footsteps, are for example Mikkel Hansen whose father Flemming was also a Danish national team player, or German Stefan Kretzschmar, whose father Peter was coach of the famous GDR women’s national team, that also included Kretzschmar’s mother Waltraud, a three-time world champion.
But it’s not only about sons, as the odds are somewhere around 50 per cent that Nikola Karabatic becomes father of a girl – hence maybe Abas Arslanagic can be his role model.
The goalkeeper of the famous Yugoslav national team and club side Metaloplastika Sabac became Olympic champion in 1972 and is also a two-time World Championship bronze medallist. His daughter Maida eventually played for the Croatian national team.
And in some cases even the double amount of handball genes are the base for a successful career, such as in the case of German international Shenia Minevskaja. Her father Andrej was Olympic champion with EUN in 1992, her mother Svetlana a three-time world champion with the Soviet Union.
And maybe ‘Little Nikola’ at some point in the future will be the opponent of Colin Klein (born in 2014).
He is the son of the two German internationals Dominik Klein and Isabell Klein. Then families would reunite as Klein and Karabatic played in the same team, THW Kiel, some time ago.
TEXT:
Björn Pazen / ts