A Baltic Blog

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When you think of the country Iceland, you wouldn’t instantly associate it with snooker. However one of my Icelandic readers alerted me yesterday that the sport was very popular in the country in the 1980s. Reykjavik still has still two snooker clubs but the sport is largely now watched as an armchair fan on Eurosport.

He also pointed out to me that Iceland has a very good snooker player who was briefly on the professional tour. His name is Kristján Helgason. Despite having over thirty years knowledge of the game, this is not a player I have ever heard of. So to write this blog, I had to do some research to find out more about Kristján.

Now 44 years old, Helgason turned professional in 1995 and had two brief periods on the main tour between 1995-7 and 19998-2004. His highest break is 130 and he has made 25 career centuries with a highest ranking of 66, making £87,070 in career earnings.

Kristján’s winning streak has been on the amateur circuit with multiple wins in the Icelandic and European Championships and more recently a European Six Reds champion in 2017. However on the professional circuit, Helgason had less luck, coming across many of the top players in the early rounds of events. His greatest moment came in 2000 when he became the first Icelandic player to play at the Crucible. Having beaten players such as Joe Joggia and Joe Johnson to qualify, Kristján set up s first round meeting with the former player, Stephen Lee. Lee was however at the height of his game and dispatched Helgason, 10-3.

Helgason never managed to replicate his winning streak on the main tour and was further thwarted by the likes of Anthony Hamilton and Paul Hunter to ever get past the last 32 stage His last appearance was in the 2004 British Open where he lost 5-4 to Michael Wild. He dropped off the tour in the same year, ranked 103, aged 30.
https://youtu.be/8BS9vI6V1rc

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