Female Icelandic weightlifter of the year:

Anna Hulda Ólafsdóttir competing for Reykjavik Weightlifting Club, LFR.

Anna Hulda Olafsdottir earns the title for the 3rd year in a row. She holds the highest Sinclair points of the Icelandic female lifters with 236,2 points. She got those points when she became the Nordic champion in -58kg weight class, the first Icelandic female to earn that title. She also competed at the European championship in Olympic weightlifting and was placed 14th overall in -63kg weight class. Anna managed to set 8 Icelandic records this year, one in the -63kg weight class and 7 in the -58 weight class.

http://results.lsi.is/lifter/anna-hulda-olafsdottir
    

Male Icelandic weightlifter of the year:

Andri Gunnarsson competing for Garðabær Weightlifting Club, LFG.

This is the first time that Andri Gunnarsson earns this title. He placed third in the Sinclair competition at the Games of the Small States of Europe in San Marino and earned himself 326,8 Sinclair points. In San Marino he snatched 143 kg and clean&jerked 170 kg.
http://results.lsi.is/lifter/andri-gunnarsson

Promising young Icelandic weightlifters of the year:

For the first time, the Icelandic Weightlifting Federation gives recognitions to young and promising lifters. Those that earned these titles for 2014 are:

Lilja Lind Helgadóttir [LFG] (b.1996) - Promising young female weightlifter of the year.
Lilja Lind set a new Nordic record of those younger than 20 years in clean and jerk this year when she lifted 103kg in +75kg weight class. She broke 11 Icelandic records this years and 13 for those younger than 20 years.

http://results.lsi.is/lifter/lilja-lind-helgadottir

Guðmundur Högni Hilmarsson [LFR] (b.1996) - Promising young female weightlifter of the year
Guðmundur placed second in the Nordic championship for those younger than 20 years old in -85kg weight class. He broke the Icelandic record when he clean and jerked 147kg this year and he also broke 14 Icelandic records for those younger than 20 years old.

http://results.lsi.is/lifter/gudmundur-hogni-hilmarsson

The following athletes set Icelandic weightlifting records in 2014.

Name [Club] and number of records set in 2014.

Females (54)
Lilja Lind Helgadóttir [LFG]: 11
Birna Dís Ólafsdóttir [LFG]: 10
Anna Hulda Ólafsdóttir [LFR]: 8
Hrefna H. Guðlaugardóttir [LFR]: 8
Björk Óðinsdóttir [KFA]: 6
Ragnheiður Sara Sigmundsdóttir [UMFN]: 6
Annie Mist Þórisdóttir [LFR]: 3
Þuríður Erla Helgadóttir [Ármann]: 1
Katrín Tanja Davíðsdóttir [Ármann]: 1

Males (13)
Björgvin Karl Guðmundsson [LFR]: 9
Sigurður Bjarki Einarsson [FH]: 3
Guðmundur Högni Hilmarsson [LFR]: 1

Young men: (20 years old and younger) (53)
Guðmundur Högni Hilmarsson [LFR]: 14
Stefán Velemir [FH]: 11
Hilmar Örn Jónsson [FH]: 9
Einar Ingi Jónsson [LFR]: 6
Sindri Pétur Ingimundarson [LFR]: 5
Högni Hjálmtýr Kristjánsson [LFR]: 3
Hinrik Ingi Óskarsson [LFR]: 2
Guðmundur Steinn Gíslason Kjeld [LFR]: 2
Emil Ragnar Ægisson [UMFN]: 1

Young women (20 years old and younger) (20)
Lilja Lind Helgadóttir [LFG]: 13
Sólveig Sigurðardóttir [LFG]: 7

Older women [35-39 years old]
Íris Dröfn Johansen [UMFN]: 7

Older men [50-54 years old]
Gísli Kristjánsson [LFR]: 5

Annie Thorisdottir and Anna Hulda Olafsdottir both set new records this year

TEN important things when planning a winter visit to Iceland

1. Choose your tours before you book your flights! Many tours are not available every day – some perhaps only once a week – others once per year. Finding out that you already paid for a flight to Iceland and the tour which is the reason for your whole trip is not available on your dates is ... well... disappointing – to say the least.

2. Choose your tours before booking accommodation in Reykjavik. Some of the best winter tours are 2 or 3-day ones in the country side and include accommodation.

3. To see the northern lights it is important to have overnight tours, 2 and 3 day tours, where the accommodation is in the darkness of the countryside. Evening tours out from Reykjavik, out from the light pollution, are usually back to the city around 12:30 and very often the lights snow them selves later into the night.

4. If you have no experience of driving in snow, on icy roads, in heavy winds or in total darkness, avoid self-drive tours during the winter. Let the experts do the driving;choose scheduled guided tours, feel safe and enjoy.

5. There are many scheduled guided tours, with no minimum bookings, every day out from Reykjavik. Day tours, two day tours, three day tours and longer. Enjoy your travel instead of spending the day inside a bus = have two and three day tours instead of long day tours.

6. For Snaefellsnes Peninsula choose the 2 day tour but not the day tour. For South Coast and Jokulsarlon glacier lagoon choose the two day tour but not the day tour. And if you want to include ice caving then have the 3 day tour. For Landmannalaugar the same ... choose the 3 day tour. For glacier hiking choose the 2 day tour for the South Coast but not the day tour. That way you get much more out of your visit to Iceland.

7. Most tour operators offer pick-up an drop off from all main hotels and guest houses in Reykjavik. But if you choose accommodation on the countyside, even if they are not located far from Reykjavik, only private tours are possible.

8. Choose and book all tours some weeks before arrival, be organized. Don´t choose your tours when you have already arrived in Iceland. The most popular tours are often fully booked one or two weeks in advance and sometimes longer, even more than a month during Christmas and New Year.

9. Timing of sunrise and sunset does not tell all the truth about the daylight ... there is daylight in Iceland long before sunrise and long time after sunset.

10. Organise your activities and tours before arrival, do your homework, research your options, read the tour descriptions, choose tours, then book your flight, then book the tours and the last thing you do is organise and book your accommodation.

Trespassers Arrested - Dangerous Gas

A warning was recently issued for northern parts of the East fjords of Iceland, where high levels of SO₂ were being emitted by the eruption and the wind was carrying it that way. 

Everyone knows about the volcano in Iceland, and the area has officially been closed down, allowing only scientists and sometimes journalists to enter. But people have been sneaking into the area, without proper authorization, leaving them unregistered and therefore in even more danger. The Icelandic police has arrested several people for trespassing. The De­part­ment of Civil Pro­tec­tion stresses the im­por­tance of respecting the clos­ings. They are for your own good.

Photos from Nasa

Below are photos from NASA showing the Holuhraun lava field. The photos are from September 6th and then the lava field was 16 square kilometers (6.2 sq. miles) but since then it's area has increased to over 20 square kilometers.