Katrine Lunde
Talant Dujshebaev
Stat by stat
Bars are scaled to the leader in this list.
The verdict
Katrine Lunde leads 3 of 3 categories. Our all-time ranking places Katrine Lunde at #4 and Talant Dujshebaev at #10.
The case for Katrine Lunde
The most decorated goalkeeper in handball and, by trophy count, arguably the most decorated player of any kind. Lunde won Olympic gold with Norway in 2008, 2012 and 2024, and took a medal at five consecutive Games from Beijing to Paris, where she played the final at 44. She has three world titles, in 2011, 2015 and 2021, and a stack of European Championships from the Norwegian dynasty that has now won a record ten EHF Euro crowns. At club level she won the Champions League seven times with three different employers: Viborg in 2009 and 2010, Gyor in 2013 and 2014, and Vipers Kristiansand in 2021, 2022 and 2023. Her method is positional rather than acrobatic - she reads the shooter's hips, plants early and takes up an enormous amount of visual space - and her record in 7-metre duels has decided finals for two decades. Her twin sister Kristine played alongside her for Norway.
The case for Talant Dujshebaev
Born in Frunze in Soviet Kyrgyzstan, Dujshebaev won Olympic gold with the Unified Team in 1992, took Spanish citizenship, and then won Olympic bronze for Spain in 1996 and 2000 - a career that traced the political redrawing of the sport. He was named IHF World Player of the Year twice, in 1994 and 1996, as a centre back of unusual physical power who could shoot from nine metres and defend the middle of a 6-0 for a full match, a combination that barely exists now. He spent his best club years in Spain with Teka Santander and Ciudad Real, in the period when the Spanish league was the strongest in the world. His second career made him more influential still: as a coach he took Kielce to the Champions League title in 2016, and both his sons, Alex and Daniel, became Spanish internationals. Few people have shaped three handball nations.