Croatia National Thread

[crosportdbk 0]

Hi guys,I am new on this site,it seems very interesting and great place to argue about sports.Just wanted you to know another Croat is here

[crovitlaci 177]

Olympics are over but our successes aren't. Marin Čilić won his first Masters series tournament ever. 

[prso1000 667]

A bit late but still i see a need to do that, a review of croatian performance at the Rio Olympics.

It was really a great Olympics fro Croatia, 10 medals and i guess it will be difficult to ever reapat that. I was predicting seven medals, which was already sort of optimistic.

 

Athletics:

Looking only at Athletics, Croatia was 7th in the medal ranking.

We all expected gold from Sandra, and she did it, the other two meldas were huge surprises to me.

Sara Kolak is the new star, altough i knew she has a great future, I did not expect this result yet (final was my optimistic expectation). Lets see how things develop for her, but i hope we will watch her in many future competitions fighting for medals again.

Blanka, i was not expecting a  medal, clearly she benefited from the rather bad level in high jump this year and exclusion of russians. Nevertheless, without any competition this year (outdoor) it is a huge achievment to win bronze. She mentioned Tokio, I am not sure about it, i think it is time to retire. With all these injury problems, it just does not make sense. And gold in Tokio, i doubt.

Not to forget, Zunic and Ivancevic with final and semi final. Others rather bad (Mihaljevic, Horvat, Matosevic, Vrajic, Simic)

Overall great!

 

Basketball: Very positive for us. I am still somehow so sorry for that 3rd quarter gainst Serbia, but no one was expecting such a good performance, ok lets forget the game against Nigeria. I think we can expect something for the future, and Tokio could be even a medal without injuries and if all players continue to play for the national team. Overall positive!

 

Boxing: As i predicted bronze for Hrgovic, the semi final was really a bad fight from him. As expected Sep nothing. Overall positive!

 

Cycling: Very good performance of Djurasek, and no finish from Kvasina. Overall positive.

 

Diving: First time at Olympics in this sport and decent rank for Maric. Positive.

 

Gymnastics: And again a dissapointment for Ude, but somehow expected. I did not expect a medal, but was hoping for final.

Lets hope that we will have more athletes in Tokio, the qualification modus is changing in our favour. Derek, well, first Olympics, it was ok. Overall negative!

 

Handball: Probably the biggest disappointment of the Olympics for Croatia. I was sure we will make a medal, but in 1/4 finals it was a disaster and Poland deserved to win. Overall negative and it is time to fire Babic.

 

Judo: Matic lost in 1st round, She was my dark horse. Negative.

Still the outlook is positive. We have few very good young judokas with potential for Tokio (both Matic sisters, Kumric, Sikic, Topolovec etc)

 

Rowing: Two boats, two medals. And so close for Martin. What to say. Fantastic!

Only problem I see there are no other boats even close to Olympic level at this stage.

 

Sailing: Finally a medal. And actually two. Still a bit sorry about Stipanovic and the medal race, and Bambis medal race. But if someone told me before Rio two medals, i would have been very happy. Others according to expectations. Overall very very positive!

 

Shooting: Gold in trap for Glasnovic, plus two other finals. Overall sounds very good. I am still a bit dissapointed. We had two 9th places in disciplines where we had good chances for medals (Gorsa and Pejcic). But shooting is lottery, and both Pejcic and Gorsa with a 7th and 9th place each did well. I am very sorry for PEjcic after such a great year, she did not perform as well in Rio, i hope she will continue until tokio. We have a quite good team right now with few youngsters following. Others in Rio according to expectaions. Overall positive!

 

Swimming: Samardzic very good altough she did not reach her best results in backstroke. But the rankings were very good for her, and best Croatian results for long time. Todorovic as usual bad, and i hope not to see him any more at international level . It is time for a new generation led by Samardzic, Obrovac, Blaskovic, etc. Overall ok

 

Table Tennis: Gacina lost his first match, and actually he had a very good draw. Therefore negative! Our table tennis has  somehow a negative trend.

 

Tennis: Well, somehow negative, all won the matches they had to win, bit did not do anything spectacular. Probably the worst thing happaned before Olympics when Dodig decided he will not play. Overall negative

 

Taekwando: I did not expect a medal, but all 3 lost in 1 round. Here again it is probably time for a new generation (Rados, Kaneat, Brecic, Jelic, etc). Lets see if Zaninovics will continue, Grgic probably will retire soon. Negative!

 

Waterpolo: Positive surprise to me. Very good. Overall great!

 

Wrestling: Unfortuntely my prediction was correct and Bozo lost his bronze medal match. But overall positive, i am still not sure what happend in that match with the Russian as I am not an expert. I think the problem here was rather in the qualification period, as we did not qualify a single wrestler and were so close. lets hope we will have few wrestlers in Tokio (Starcevic, ettlinger, Lizatovic, etc)

 

Weightlifitng: Music, actually ok.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 29, 2016 by prso1000

[prso1000 667]

For Tokio i hope Croatia will qualify in few new sports as Archery, Badminton, Football, Karate, Synchronzied Swimming.

Triathlon and Beach Volleyball would be great as well, but i consider that as  hopeless.

 

Also a return in Canoeing Sprint/Slalom, Fencing, Equestrian (probably hopeless) would be great as well.

I dont have a clue how strong or not our athletes are in the new sports, but i guess with exception of Karate i dont think we have a chance.  

[Milan 26]

Our Baseball Team is actually not bad, again qualified for this year's European Championship (which has 12 participating nations). But I guess only 1 or 2 European teams will qualify for Tokyo. Won't be enough for us.

 

Lucija Zaninovic actually won her first round match. She was very unlucky with losing to Aziez in the final seconds of the fight. And then Aziez lost to the Korean woman in sudden death round, so there was no repechage for Zaninovic.

[prso1000 667]

Is it correct that our female basketball team practically does not have any chance to qulaify for the Eurobasket 2017?

I understand only chance is to beat France away, which is almost science fiction?

 

 

[Milan 26]

Unfortunately this looks to be correct. They will probably finish 2nd in their group, but with only one win against Netherlands they won't be among six best 2nd placed teams.

Our women's teams are quite bad overall, only Volleyball and Handball team are somewhere near top level.

Could Luka Paliska be a hope for Triathlon? I don't know much about him and am not very familiar with Triathlon in general, but he seems to have solid results at junior level.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Milan

[dcro 10,210]

Some promising results at Zagreb Marathon today.

 

Bojana Bjeljac 2:40:51

Matea Matošević 2:42:28

:

Both getting personal bests and going well inside the qualification standards for Olympics/World Championships. Also Nikolina Stepan ran solid 2:46:11. Nice to see marathon developing.

[prso1000 667]

Few other good results

 

Miskovic 2nd at Judo Grand Prix in Uzbekistan, 3rd place for Sikic

at European Cup in Belgrade few medals as well (Sutalo, Prodan, Topolovec, Babic)

 

Very promising is 2nd place for Peter Files in fencing at Junior WC in bangkok

[dcro 10,210]

Looks like we have a very interesting, and promising, pair in figure skating coming up. Lana Petranović and her foreign Russian-Portuguese partner Antonio Souza Kordeyru.

 

They made their international debut in Warsaw this weekend and scored some 138 points in total. Such result puts them very much into Olympic qualification zone, and this was only their first ever competition! Back in 2014 for example, a score of 125 was enough to qualify.

 

More about them...http://www.croskate.hr/hr/aktualno/predstavljanje-sportskog-para/

 

And let's not forget Nick Vrdoljak in men's singles, who has been scoring PBs lately... We suddenly have very nice team and it would be so cool if at least one of them can make it to Korea!