Christopher McDermott (born 7 June 1989) is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the ...

player. He competed as part of

Team GB Team GB is the brand name used since 1999 by the British Olympic Association (BOA) for their British Olympic team. The brand was developed after the nation's poor performance in the 1996 Summer Olympics, and is now a trademark of the BOA. I ...

at the 2012 London Olympic Games. He currently coaches the GB Men's Under 20s. Past clubs include R.D. Slovan of Slovenia, Danish Liga side Aarhus G.F. and German Bundasliga side TUSEM Essen. In June 2015 he became the Great Britain handball team's most capped player, surpassing Mick Hegarty's long standing record of 55 caps set in the 1980s.

Bio

Having played for Wirral Handball Club since the age of 10, Christopher was selected at the age of 16 to move to Denmark as part of the GB Handball teams centralized program. After progressing through the ranks of Danish youth club

Handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the ...

Christopher was granted a move to Germany to play for TUSEM Essen. He has since played for

Aarhus GF Håndbold Aarhus (, , ; officially spelled Århus from 1948 until 1 January 2011) is the second-largest city in Denmark and the seat of Aarhus Municipality. It is located on the eastern shore of Jutland in the Kattegat sea and approximately northwes ...

RD Slovan Rokometno društvo Slovan, commonly referred to as RD Slovan or simply Slovan, is a handball club from Ljubljana, Slovenia. Arena RD Slovan play their home matches at Kodeljevo Sports Park, a 1,540 all-seated hall in Ljubljana. Colours The tr ...

Afturelding
and Salford H.C. (Now known as Warrington Wolves) In May 2012 Christopher was selected for the London

2012 Summer Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, th ...

. Injuries nearly prevented him from doing so, with the player suffering a ruptured muscle the day before the opening ceremony. He managed to play through the injury and proceeded to play a big part in each of Team GB's matches at the games.

competed against

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic countries, Nordic c ...

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

and

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its ...

, where GB were unable to record a win despite having risen dramatically through the world rankings, aided by more funding than usual, enabling them to build a platform. In reality, winning against one of the world's top teams had always been an extremely tall order (despite running silver medallists Iceland very close until half time) and the real purpose of the efforts of the squad was to build a base for handball to develop in the UK. In this he and his team mates were successful, and handball remains a legacy sport of London 2012, recording significant, sustained expansion in the period since. Post 2012, McDermott and his Warrington Wolves teammates have broken the historic stranglehold overseas ex-pat players had previously enjoyed in British Leagues and with a team made up wholly of British young players now dominate the English Handball Premier League with successive League and Cup doubles and victory in the British Cup making up a historic treble.

Bio

References

External links