Ægir Steinarsson

Ægir Steinarsson
Player information
Full name	Ægir Þór Steinarsson
birthday	May 10, 1991
place of birth	Reykjavík, Iceland
size	182 cm
position	Point guard
college	Newberry
Club information
society	TAU Castelló
league	LEB Oro
Clubs as active
2008–2011 Fjölnir Reykjavík 2011–2013 Newberry Wolves ( NCAA Div II) 2013–2015 Sundsvall Dragons 2015–2016 KR Reykjavík 2016 CB Peñas Huesca 2016–2017 San Pablo Burgos Since 2017 TAU Castelló 00000 0
National team 1
Since 02012	Iceland	48
1 As of August 31, 2017

Ægir Þór Steinarsson (born May 10, 1991 in Reykjavík ) is an Icelandic basketball player . After starting his career in the Icelandic league Úrvalsdeild karla and studying for two years in the United States , Ægir Steinarsson has been playing as a professional abroad since 2013. After two years in Sweden , he played again briefly in his home country before he went to the second Spanish league LEB Oro , where he reached the runner-up in this division and promotion to the top division with San Pablo Burgos in 2017. Meanwhile, Ægir Steinarsson moved to the previous league competitor AB TAU Castelló for the following season 2017/18. With the Icelandic national basketball team , he took part in the only two European Championship finals in 2015 and 2017 , for which the Icelanders could qualify up to and including 2017.

Career

Ægir Steinarsson began his career with Fjölnir in his hometown, with whom he achieved immediate promotion to the top division of Úrvalsdeild karla in 2009 . Then Ægir Steinarsson was twice named the best young player in the Icelandic league, but returnees Fjölnir narrowly missed the place in the play-offs of the best eight teams for the championship. In 2011 Ægir Steinarsson went to the mother country of basketball, the United States, to study at Newberry College , a private, Evangelical Lutheran college in Newberry (South Carolina) . Their college team Wolves , however, only plays in the South Atlantic Conference of the NCAA Division II, with generally only teams of the NCAA Division I being considered as a qualifying training facility for athletes aiming for a professional career. After two years Ægir Steinarsson left the university again and then began a professional career as a basketball player.

For the 2013/14 season, Ægir Steinarsson moved to the basketligan for the Swedish runner-up Dragons from Sundsvall , where his experienced compatriots Hlynur Bæringsson and Jakob Sigurðarson already played and where Ægir Steinarsson was able to do an apprenticeship with Jakob Sigurðarson as a professional rookie . However, the Sundsvall Dragons could no longer build on past successes with Ægir Steinarsson when the Södertälje Kings dominated the championship and on the way to their third championship in a row in 2015 cleared the Dragons in the play-off semi- final series. Then not only Jakob Sigurðarson left the team, but also Ægir Steinarsson, who initially returned to his hometown and played for champions Knattspyrnufélag (KR) in the 2015/16 season. However, he left the defending champion at the end of February 2016 as the best assists in the league with almost seven assists per game.

Ægir Steinarsson moved from KR at the end of the 2015/16 season to the second Spanish league LEB Oro to CB Peñas from Huesca . The former first division and main round seventh made it into the final series in the play-offs for the remaining athletic promotion place, which was clearly lost without a win against Club Melilla Baloncesto . In the semi-final series, Peñas Huesca had surprisingly defeated the main round third San Pablo Miraflores from Burgos in four games, which then committed Ægir Steinarsson for the following season. With this team he reached third place again in the LEB Oro 2016/17, a victory behind the direct promoted San Sebastián Gipuzkoa BC and tied with the second CB Breogán , which, however, was defeated in the semi-final series of the promotion play-offs and finally in the final series against CD Maristas Palencia without defeat in the play-offs ensured the athletic promotion. In contrast to previous years and other athletic climbers, Burgos also fulfilled the economic and infrastructural requirements that have now been lowered and subsequently received the license for the top division ACB . Ægir Steinarsson, however, did not get a new contract, although he had been the best assists of his team with almost four assists per game. Instead, he moved to the previous league rivals Amics del Bàsquet TAU on the east coast to Castellón de la Plana north of Valencia , who, like third-from-bottom Huesca, had only just managed to stay fourth from bottom.

Ægir Steinarsson in the 2016 national jersey during a free throw

In the past, the Icelandic national team had only participated in smaller final tournaments such as the so-called Division B of FIBA Europe and the games of the small states of Europe . In the summer of 2014, the selection in the European Championship qualification was able to prevail somewhat surprisingly against the British national basketball team and qualify for the first time for a FIBA ​​finals of the best European national teams. At the European Championship finals even a year later in 2015, the national team played their first ever final game in the Berlin Mercedes-Benz Arena against host Germany , which was just lost at 65:71. There was also no victory in the following four preliminary round games, with the Turkish national basketball team needing extra time to defeat the Icelanders 111: 102. After the early elimination at the premiere, the Icelandic selection was able to qualify again in the European Championship qualifying summer 2016 , when they prevailed against Cyprus and the Swiss national team , whose only qualifying victory was against the Icelanders. At the 2017 European Championship finals , Ægir Steinarsson is now trying to achieve at least the first final victory of an Icelandic selection with his teammates.

Web links

Commons : Ægir Steinarsson  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Ægir Steinarsson - Overview of participation in international FIBA tournaments on archive.fiba.com (English)
• FEB.es: STEINARSSON, AEGIR - player profile with statistics on the websites of the FEB ( Spanish )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ A-landslid karla: Leikjafjöldi leikmanna. KKÍ , accessed September 1, 2017 (Icelandic, list of record national players). 
2. ↑ Besti ungi leikmaðurinn. KKÍ , accessed September 1, 2017 (Icelandic, Excellent Player List). 
3. ↑ Marc-Oliver Robbers: First victory with tremors. Spox.com , September 5, 2015, accessed August 31, 2017 (Match Report). 
4. ↑ archive.fiba.com: 2015 EuroBasket - Box Score - Game: TURKEY vs ICELAND (Group B). FIBA , accessed on August 31, 2017 (English, game statistics). 

Note: Icelanders are referred to by their first name or first and last name, but not just their surname. Further information can be found under Icelandic personal name .