Gordon Sigurjonsson

Guðmundur was born in Litluströnd at Mývatn on 15 April 1883[1] to Friðfinna Davíðsdóttir and Sigurjón Guðmundsson. He was the second youngest of 10 children.[2] After being raised in poverty, he moved to Reykjavík in 1905, at the age of 22. There he started training Glíma, an Icelandic wrestle, which he quickly mastered. On 2 August 1907, he participated in the Konungsglíman (English: The King's wrestle) at Þingvellir, a Glíma competition in the honor of king Frederick VIII of Denmark visit to Iceland.[3] He was one of seven Icelanders who showcased Glíma at the 1908 Summer Olympics.[4]

After studying sports training and therapy in England, Guðmundur moved to Winnipeg in Canada in 1914 where he learned Greco-Roman wrestling and Ice hockey.[5] He served in the Canadian military from 1916 to 1919, becoming a sergeant in the 27th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force during the First World War.[6] In 1920, he was the trainer of the Winnipeg Falcons when it won the gold medal in ice hockey for Canada at the 1920 Summer Olympics.[4]

Guðmundur returned to Iceland in 1920 and became a well known trainer in Glíma and track&field. He was a member of the Independent Order of Good Templars and a staunch believer in abstinence from alcohol and drugs. In January 1924, Guðmundur was charged to the police by a man named Steindór Sigurðsson, for ill treatment of patients in Litli-Kleppur, a psychiatric hospital where Guðmundur worked, and for trying to entice him into having sexual intercourse with him, a violation of the Icelandic sodomy law at the time. Steindór later withdrew the charges, claiming that bootleggers had paid him to implicate Guðmundur to those crimes as he was hurting their business. Nonetheless, the police investigation continued and trial started on 28 February the same year with 14 witnesses called.[7] Guðmundur was acquitted of ill treatment of patients but was sentenced to eight months in prison for having sexual relations with another man. He served three months of the sentence before being set free. He was the only person to have served a prison sentence for violating the Icelandic sodomy law.[4][2]

In 1930, Guðmundur started working in the sports movement again. In 1942 he started training Glíma at Íþróttafélag Reykjavíkur and in 1948, he was part of the training staff that followed the Icelandic Olympic athletes that competed at the 1948 summer Olympics.[5]

Guðmundur died on 14 January 1967, at the age of 83. He was buried 5 months later, on 14 June, at his family plot close to Mývatn.[2]