Women in Icelandic Sports – Breaking Records and Barriers
In 1964, handball player Sigríður Sigurðardóttir became the first woman ever to be named Iceland’s Sportsperson of the Year. This happened only nine years after the award was first established — an impressive milestone at the time. Sigríður truly earned the honor by leading the Icelandic national women’s handball team to victory at the Nordic Championships, where she was both the top scorer and the tournament’s best player. It was also Iceland’s first Nordic championship title in handball, and Sigríður remains the first athlete from a team sport ever to win the award.
Her recognition was remarkable, but what followed was equally telling: 24 years passed before another woman received the title again. That was in 1991, when Ragnhildur Runólfsdóttir, a swimmer who set over 200 Icelandic records, was named Sportsperson of the Year.
In the 67 years since the award’s inception, 47 individuals have earned the title — only eight of them women, and just one, footballer Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir, has won it twice. In 2024, for the first time ever, the top three places in the voting were all held by women.
Icelandic Women Named Sportsperson of the Year
- 1964 – Sigríður Sigurðardóttir (handball)
- 1991 – Ragnhildur Runólfsdóttir (swimming)
- 2000 – Vala Flosadóttir (pole vault)
- 2007 – Margrét Lára Viðarsdóttir (football)
- 2015 – Eygló Ósk Gústafsdóttir (swimming)
- 2017 – Ólafía Þórunn Kristinsdóttir (golf)
- 2018 & 2020 – Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir (football)
- 2024 – Glódís Perla Viggósdóttir (football)
Milestones in the History of Icelandic Women’s Sports
- 1964: The women’s national handball team became Nordic champions — Iceland’s first-ever Nordic title in any sport. Around 4,000 fans filled Laugardalsvöllur to cheer them on. It would take another 47 years before the team reached the European Championships again.
- 1976: Iceland’s first Gender Equality Act was passed, encouraging greater female participation in sports.
- 1983: Fríða Bjarnadóttir was barred from competing in Iceland’s first marathon, despite having already run two Boston Marathons. Other Icelandic women had already broken barriers abroad — Ingunn Ósk Benediktsdóttir ran the New York Marathon in 1979, and Anna Halla Kristjánsdóttir set an Icelandic record in Washington in 1980 that stood for 15 years. A year later, Fríða was finally allowed to run, becoming the first woman ever to complete a marathon in Iceland. (The world’s first female marathon competitor was Violet Piercy, in 1926.)
- 1984: The Icelandic women’s national football team was disbanded, despite a petition of over 2,000 signatures in its support. It wasn’t reinstated until 1993 — and just two years later, the team narrowly missed qualifying for the World Cup. In 1995, Ásta B. Gunnlaugsdóttir became the first woman named Icelandic Footballer of the Year. The team later made history by qualifying for the European Championship in 2009 — the first Icelandic football team, men’s or women’s, to do so.
- 2000: Vala Flosadóttir became the first Icelandic woman to win an Olympic medal, taking bronze in pole vaulting at the Sydney Games. Fellow athlete Guðrún Arnardóttir finished seventh in the 400m hurdles. Guðrún ranked among the world’s top hurdlers from 1996 to 2000 and competed in two Olympics.
- 2004: Paralympic swimmer Kristín Rós Hákonardóttir received an international award from Eurosport in collaboration with the International Olympic Committee — the first Icelandic athlete, and the first Paralympian worldwide, ever to do so. Over a 22-year career, she set 60 world records and 9 Paralympic records, earning the title Iceland’s Disabled Athlete of the Year for 12 consecutive years.
- 2012: Annie Mist Þórisdóttir became the first woman in the world to win the CrossFit Games twice in a row. She also became the first woman to return to the podium within a year of giving birth.
- 2018: 462 Icelandic sportswomen signed a public declaration titled Let’s Level the Playing Field, sharing personal stories of harassment, discrimination, and violence in sports. That same year, the Icelandic Football Association equalized performance bonuses between men’s and women’s national teams — a victory that women’s teams worldwide had long fought for. (The U.S. women’s team, the most successful in the world, achieved this in 2022.)
- 2023: Footballer Sara Björk Gunnarsdóttir won a landmark case against French powerhouse Lyon, which was ordered to pay her full salary for the period she was on maternity leave — a precedent-setting victory for professional footballers globally. Sara Björk had already made history in 2020 as the first Icelander to win the UEFA Women’s Champions League, scoring one of the three goals in Lyon’s final.
- 2023: Sports participation among women reached record highs. Over 38,000 girls under 18 and 25,000 women over 18 were active in organized sports — meaning that around 40% of all Icelandic women now take part in sports.
Sports have become a powerful force in Icelandic society — and the ongoing pursuit of equality, in pay, facilities, and respect, remains just as vital as ever.