# Stefan Kretzschmar

Stefan Kretzschmar (German pronunciation:; born 17 February 1973) is a retired professional German handball player. He was a three-time Olympic athlete and winner of the Olympic silver medal with the German team in 2004, and he won the
He is currently the sporting director at Füchse Berlin and a handball expert on the streaming service Dyn Media. He was included in the European Handball Federation Hall of Fame in 2023.

## Career

Kretzschmar is considered part of the Lemgo 'golden generation' together with Daniel Stephan, Christian Schwarzer, Florian Kehrmann and Volker Zerbe, who won the European Championship together. He started playing handball at the age of 6, and at the age of 12 he joined a training program in Berlin, which led to him joining the youth team at SC Dynamo Berlin, where he came to play as a left wing. Two years later he won the DDR youth championship with the club.
In the 1991/92 season he became a first team player at the Handball-Bundesliga team Blau-Weiß Spandau, which had just fused with SC Dynamo Berlin. With 125 he was the team topscorer.
In 1993 he joined VfL Gummersbach under Heiner Brand. He debuted for the German national team later the same year on October 8th 1993 against Switzerland. In 1994 he was chosen as the German player of the year, and represented the German team at the 1994 European Men's Handball Championship in Portugal as his first major international tournament. Germany finished 9th and Kretzschmar was part of the all star team.
In 1995 he was for a second time named German player of the year. In 1996 he was removed from the German national team due to disagreements with the newly appointed head coach, his former club team coach, Heiner Brand.
In 1996 he joined SC Magdeburg, where he won the German Supercup in 1996. In 1997 he made his comeback for the German national team in a match against Norway on October 31st. Two years later he won Bronze medals at the 1998 European Men's Handball Championship.
In 2001 he won the EHF European League, the German Championship, the IHF Super Globe and the German Supercup with SC Magdeburg.
At the 2002 European Championship in Sweden he won silver medals with the German team, losing to the hosts in the final. Later the same year he won the EHF Champions League. This was the fist time a German club won that tournament.
At the 2003 World Championship he reached the semifinal, where he broke his finger against France.
Because an operation he was not part of the German team that won the 2004 European Championship. At the 2004 Olympics he had to content with a silver medal, as they lost to Croatia in the final. He then retired from the German national team, alongside a list of other players. The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung described it as the end of the Golden Generation.
He ended his active career on 14 July 2007 and became the sporting director at SC Magdeburg.

## Post playing career

He stopped as the sporting director at SC Magdeburg in 2009. He instead became a part of the board of SC DHfK Leipzig Handball at a volunteer basis, where he was until 2019.
In 2020 he became the sporting director at Füchse Berlin
From September 2009 to June 2017 he worked as a handball expert on the German tv-channel Sport1.
From 2023 he has been a handball expert on Dyn Media.

## Private life

He is the son of Peter Kretzschmar, a legendary handball player and coach in the former GDR (East Germany) and Waltraud Kretzschmar, a former handball player for the East German team and winner of Olympic team medals in silver (1976) and bronze (1980), His daughter Lucie-Marie Kretzschmar is a professional handball player too and member of the German national team.
He is well known for his many tattoos and piercings.
His biography, Anders als erwartet, was released in October 2008.

## Honours

* Handballer of the year: 1994, 1995
* EHF Hall of Fame in 2023.
* Silver Medal (Runners-up), World Championships, 2003
* International All Star-Team: 1994
* DHB-Supercup: 2007
* Handball European Cup: 2002
* EHF Cup: 2007