In our third article of the introduction series, we present the Croatian Olympic team in shooting, handball, diving, and tennis
Shooting
It is not a widely popular sport, but it has brought quite a success for Croatian Olympic team in the past. Bronze by Snježana Pejčić from Beijing, and the gold medal for Giovanni Cernogoraz from London. Both of them will be a part of the Croatian team in Rio, and the team which will join them in the effort to win some more medals for Croatia counts seven shooters in total.
Valentina Gustin, Marija Marović, Tanja Perec, Josip Glasnović, and Petar Gorša will have their chance to shine at the Olympics, and while the two mentioned first are considered favorites, the others are contenders too, specially Josip Glasnović, who competes it the same discipline as Cernogoraz.
Snježana Pejčić will be at the shooting range on the first day of the competition, so we hope we will have the good news at the day one of the Olympics, just as we did eight years ago.
Handball
“The Cowboys” are the most successive team in Croatian Olympic history, with two gold and one bronze. They plan to get one more this year and knowing their passion, it is likely to happen once again.
Ilija Brozović, Ivan Čupić, Domagoj Duvnjak, Jakov Gojun, Zlatko Horvat, Igor Karačić, Marko Kopljar, Krešimir Kozina, Marko Mamić, Ivan Pešić, Ivan Slišković, Luka Stemančić, Ivan Stevanović, Manuel Štrlek, and Luka Cindrić will be representing Croatian handball in Rio.
They are considered the heart and soul of the whole Croatian Olympic team, and the story says that the room of Ivan Čupić and Zlatko Horvat is turned into the lounge bar with a nickname “At short and shorter”, and many Croatian athletes spend their free time on the balcony of the improvised lounge bar.
Five members of the team won the bronze at the London Olympics, and most of them participated in the European Championships earlier this year when one more medal was won, so surely that experience will help them to be at the highest level once again.
The first match for Croatian handball team is scheduled for August 7th, against Qatar, and matches against Argentina, Denmark, France, and Tunis are to follow. Hopefully, we will watch them in the finals on the closing day of the Olympics, August 21st.
Diving
Marcela Marić, nineteen-year-old born in Zadar who competes for the University of Miami, Florida will be representing Croatia at the Olympics in the discipline of three meters springboard diving.
She has one bronze medal from European Junior Championships in the past, and she will be competing on August 12th in Rio.
Tennis
The sport with three bronze medals from the past Olympic Games for Croatia will be represented by Ana Konjuh, Marin Čilić, Borna Čorić and Marin Draganja. Čilić and Draganja will be playing the doubles, and if we looked for the eventual medal contender, it would be our pick.
Marin Čilić is not without chances in the singles event, but it would be presumptuous to consider him a favorite.
