President Milanović Meets with Representatives of Croatian Shooting Federation on its 240th Anniversary
The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović met today with the best Croatian shooters, their coaches, and representatives of the Croatian Shooting Federation, the umbrella shooting organization in Croatia that is celebrating its 240th anniversary this year.
The representatives of the Croatian Shooting Federation, President Hubert Kišpal, Vice President Zoran Ćelić, Director of the National Team Jasminka Francki Bijonda, and Secretary General Bojan Đurković, proudly mentioned that shooting is the oldest organized sport in Croatia. Since the founding of the Civil Shooting Society in Osijek in 1784, it is considered the inception of shooting sports in Croatia. In the past 30 years, Croatian sports shooters have won more than 300 medals at European and world competitions, making shooting the sport that has won the most medals in Croatia.
As the most notable achievements, they highlighted Snježana Pejčić’s bronze medal at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing – the first Olympic medal for this sport and the first female Olympic medal for independent Croatia – and the gold medals of Giovanni Cernogoraz, at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, and Josip Glasnović in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro.
They assessed the performances of Croatian shooters at international competitions in the past year as exceptionally successful. In this regard, they highlighted the gold medals of shooters in the trap discipline, Giovanni Cernogoraz, Anton Glasnović, and Francesco Ravalico, at the European Games in Krakow, as well as the silver medals of rifle shooters Petar Gorša, Miran Maričić, and Josip Sikavica at the same event. Furthermore, at the World Championships in Baku, rifle shooters won a bronze medal in the team competition, while Giovanni Cernogoraz achieved one of the greatest successes of his career by becoming the world champion. Additionally, a month later, he became the European champion, which earned him the title of the best athlete in Croatia in 2023, as stated at the meeting.
Despite the fact that shooting is an extremely trophy-laden sport, representatives of the Federation have pointed out that Croatia lacks satisfactory infrastructure for training. For example, there is not a single indoor shooting range in Croatia where athletes could practice in all weather conditions. However, we will continue to work on improving working conditions so that Croatian shooting can achieve good results in the future, the representatives of the Federation emphasized.
In addition to the representatives of the Croatian Shooting Federation, shooters Giovanni Cernogoraz, Anton Glasnović, Francesco Ravalico, Petar Gorša, Miran Maričić and Josip Sikavica, as well as their coaches Siniša Vitez, Damir Bošnjak and Valter Cernogoraz, attended the meeting in the Office of the President.
President Milanović was accompanied by Željko Jovanović, Commissioner of the President of the Republic for Sports.
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Dario Andrišek