Gunnar most popular in Iceland's sports 2012
Iceland's biggest news site visir.is (owned by 365 who also have the biggest newspaper in Iceland and many TV stations) just put out a wrap-up over the most popular news in sports over the year 2012. Astonishingly 3 articles about Gunnar Nelson get to the top 10 list including the nr. 1 article! And one more article about him gets on the list of 20 most popular!
This is a pretty big story in a country where football (soccer, especially the English Premium League) and handball is by far the most popular sports. There are also no MMA competitions in Iceland and for e.g. Gunnar is not viable for the Icelandic sportsman award of the year because MMA and grappling are not part of the National Olympic and Sports Association of Iceland and for some strange reason only sports that are a part of that association are viable for the awards. This leaves Gunnar, along with many other great athletes, out in the cold so to speak when it comes to these awards. This however does not change the fact that the Icelandic people want to read news of Gunnar and the growth of interest in MMA in Iceland is just amazing.
The fact that articles on Gunnar are the most popular on the biggest news site in Iceland speaks for itself and lets not forget that this year we had the Olympic Games in London and the Icelandic National Team in handball competed there but they won silver at the Olympic Games 4 years a ago. And there were some big news on Icelandic pro soccer players joining big teams in England, an Icelandic athlete becoming world champion in Cross Fit for the second time and so on. With this in mind the fact that news of Gunnar are so popular become even more amazing.
