Sport

SPORTS

The Yugoslav sport had always been at the highest level and Serbia-Montenegro had taken the torch in the last years. The sport is an important school, and one has merely to see the combatant spirit of the most young at a Sunday football match. The success of the sport in Serbia-Montenegro has been reposing on three factors. In the first place the sport federations recruiting at the school level at an early age and offering a true shaping of the youngest. The great coaches in all fields. One remembers the famous goalkeeper of Saint-Etienne of Mostar, the Serb Curkovic who had long time been leading the national football team, and today is a member of the International Olympic Committee, but let us mention the strong Bozidar Markovic the coach to Limoges, and thereafter of the national basketball team.

Finally, the sport makes a part of the national culture. It is sufficient to see the gathering around the chess players in the Belgrade park of Kalemegdan. More outstanding has been the occupation of the great basket ball halls from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. incessantly.

The forbidding to take part in the international competitions from 1992 to 1994 and a relative pauperisation had deprived the national championship of the best players playing in West Europe (the footballers in Spain) or in USA (the basketball players Divac or Stojakovic). This international isolation had also been cut off in its vigour in advancement of the national basket team (see the framed). But since the middle of 1990s the results had been more and more promising, namely in the collective sports.

The collective sports

The Serbo-Montenegrins have been held to be the masters of the pass and had developed the winner spirit. But take care, no questions of individualism! The “Slav spirit “ would be realized only through the collective. It has been sufficient to analyse the results of the last Olympic Games to get the account. The men volley ball team and the golden medal in Sydney after the third place in Atlanta. The water polo team had gained three gold medals between 1968 and 1988. The football had not been left alone with the Red Star from Belgrade having won the European Championship 1991 defeating a certain Marseille.

The federal structures have been engaged in finding new talents on the highest levels in the very well organized omni sport clubs. The two of the greatest have been the Red Star and the Partizan residents of Belgrade since 1945, had been engaged in keeping a faultless eternal rivalry. The Red Star were the club of the former Communist party and assemble the little and the great people everywhere in the country. The Partizan created and supported by the Army, has been more “elitist”. Both of them are in possession of infrastructures in different quarters of the capital. These two clubs made a federation of other sport groups and associations in the quarters and schools. The result has been that an adolescent normally schooling could, from 14 years of age and after sign a professional contract and be training every day in a week, and twice so during the school holidays.

The great players

In this favourable context of sport it has not been a surprise to encounter a powerful density of sportsmen of a high level per a square meter. The feminine tennis is a good example of this, especially with the career of Monica Seles. Born in Novi Sad 1973 won the competition of Roland Garros in 16 years of age, and became the youngest one reaching the place No. 1 in the world. She won since then all compeitions of Grand Slam except Wimbledon. She will remain in the history an example of a persistent an industrious lady player. For a knife-attack she failed to win the main match 1993, but that did not prevent her to take the competition again a year later and to win more than forty titles.

The torch had been taken over by Jelena Dokic, an outstanding talent. Born in Belgrade 1983. Her family must have leaved Yugoslavia when she was only 11 and settled in Australia. She appeared at the competition in Rome 2001 and thereafter she did not leave the tenth place of WTA classification. She has thus been a serious pretender to the titles of the Grand Slam last years where she competed for the Serbia-Montenegro colours as she had demanded the national passport. About these two lady players you could consult Web sites: www.monica-seles.com and www.jelena-dokic.com.

The collective sports have given us also other sport personalities. Football had 1990s been marked by a brilliant play of Dragan Stojkovic nicknamed Piksi referring to a personality of reviving design, or by the brilliant dribbling of the Montenegrin Predrag Mijatovic, this generation had been extinguished without great collectives, but a few individualities followed such as the young Parisian Ljuboja.

But the basket ball had marked the entire world by the unusual individualities. Vlade Divac had been playing with the mythical tem of “Lakers” or seven years together with the Magic Johnson, and he had literally been carrying the team of Serbia-Montenegro in that historical victory against the USA “Dream Team” at the world championship 2002. His assistants during this victorious decade (see the framed) had the names of Dejan Bodiroga called “The God” whose actions had been inspired by Zeljko Rebraca. But today Predrag Stojakovic is offering the thought out pace to his rivals. At 26 years of age, this Belgradian when playing with “Sacramento Kings” is the best shooters to the basket in the American championship wherewith he obtained the compliment by Larry Bird, the legend of US basket: “When Pedja has the ball one has the impression it would be brought in each time”.