Ivano Balic is the king of handball – according to the users of www.ihf.info. Almost 11,000 website users took part in this voting – the question was “Who’s the best male handball player ever?” 48,7 % – almost one half – voted for the Croatian international, who became Olympic Champion 2004, World Champion 2003, runner-up at World (2005, 2009) and European Championships (2008, 2010) with his national team. On individual level, Balic (born in Split, current club RZ Zagreb) has been awarded World Handball Player of the Year twice (2003, 2006) and Most Valuable Player (MVP) at several major tournaments. He was a member of the all-star teams even more often. The center back player of Zagreb and Croatia outclassed Nikola Karabatic in the voting on www.ihf.info. The French back court player (World Handball Player of the Year in 2007, current title holder at Olympics, World and European Championships with France), who plays for the French club Montpellier, received 33,7 % in this voting. Karabatic is ahead of Talant Dushebajew (current coach of Spanish team Ciudad Real) with 16,5 %.

The Bosnian and former Yugoslavian player Svetlana Kitic had been voted best female player of all time by the users of www.ihf.info before.