Luka Karabatic

Luka Karabatić
Personal information
Born	(1988-04-19) 19 April 1988 Strasbourg, France
Nationality	French
Height	2.02 m (6 ft 8 in)
Playing position	Pivot
Club information
Current club	PSG Handball
Number	22
Medal record Olympic Games 2016 Rio de Janeiro Team World Championship 2015 Qatar European Championship 2014 Denmark

Luka Karabatić (Serbian: Лука Карабатић; born 19 April 1988) is a French handball player for PSG Handball and the French national team. He is the younger brother of Nikola Karabatić.

Biography

Karabatić came from an handball family – his father, Branko, is a former Yugoslavian handballer who played as goalkeeper in the national team. His older brother, Nikola, is one of the best handball players in the world who named as best player in the world by IHF two times, but Karabatić decided to play tennis and won France championship for 10 years old in 1998. In 2007, when he was 19, Karabatić started to train handball with the youth team of Montpellier Handball as center back. In 2009 he joined the senior team of the club, in the same year his older brother Nikola Karabatić returned to Montpellier AHB again.

In his first two years as professional player, Karabatić won the French championship two times in 2009 and 2010. After his two successful seasons in Montpellier, the club decided to extend his contract until 2016. He became the second pivot in rotation after Issam Tej. In June 2006, Karabatić debuted for France in a friendly tournament in Argentina.

On 30 September 2012, he was involved in a match-fixing and arrested with his brother Nikola and his wife. On 2 October, he was indicted and then released for €4,500. Few days after his release from custody, Karabatić released from Montpellier AHB because of "serious disciplinary offenses". He signed for Pays d'Aix Université, which only promoted to LNH Division 1, with his brother Nikola. In their first season in the club, the Karabatić brothers took the team to the 9th place in the league.

In 2014, Karabatić played for the first time with France in an official competition in EHF Euro in Denmark. In 2015 he won the World Championship with France.