Sport

May 17, 2021 - The 35th round of the Croatian First League was held on May 15 and 16, 2021. This round saw Hajduk defeat Sibenik, while Rijeka topped Varazdin to remain in 4th place. Here is our HNL round 35 recap.  Istra 1961 v. Slaven Belupo (1:0) Istra and Belupo opened the 35th round on Saturday, May 15, 2021, in Pula.  While the first half went without goals, the only goal of the match came at the start of the second half when Vuk scored for 1:0 and the eventual Istra victory.    Istra is currently in 9th place…

May 17, 2021 - The Croatia men's volleyball team defeated the Netherlands in Apeldoorn 3-2 (27-25, 25-23, 18-25, 24-26, 15-13) on Sunday and secured a spot at the European Championship, which will take place from 1 to September 19 in Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, and Finland. This will be Croatia's first participation in the European Championship after 2015, when they finished the competition in Italy with three group-stage defeats, reports HRT. The match in Apeldoorn was full of nerves, a difficult psychological encounter, but no less physically demanding, because the day before, Croatia defeated Sweden in five sets. At…

May 16, 2021 - Toni Kukoč will finally be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame this September!  Index.hr reports that it was simply a matter of time, although it is not clear to anyone today why it all took so long. Toni Kukoč, a virtuoso from Split and the most trophy-winning Croatian basketball player of all time, will be part of the 2021 Hall of Fame class, which will be officially inducted in September in Springfield.  Kukoč will enter the elite class in his eighth attempt, after the Chicago Bulls nominated him in 2014, and thus become the fifth…

ZAGREB, 16 May, 2021 - The Croatian Deaf Sport Federation will host the 12th European Deaf Handball Championship in Zagreb on 18 to 27, the first major competition of the deaf to take place in Croatia. The championship will feature six national teams - Bosnia and Herzegovina, France, Russia, Serbia, Turkey and Croatia. Croatia will be defending the gold medal won at the previous championship in Berlin in 2016.  For more news about sports in Crotia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

May 16, 2021 - Nikola Mektić and Mate Pavić have done it again, this time with a title at the Italian Open!  Croatian tennis players Nikola Mektić and Mate Pavić won the ATP Masters 1000 tournament in Rome, defeating American Rajeev Rama and Briton Joe Salisbury 6:4, 7:6 (4) in the final. Pavić and Mektić won the first set after 33 minutes of play thanks to a break in the fifth game which was enough for the 6:4 win. In the second set, neither side had a break and the decision fell in the 13th game, which was fantastically played…

May 15, 2021 - An 84:64 (39:35) away game victory for Split brings the decisive final ABA relegation game back to Gripe.  The relegation series between the Yellows from Split and Spars Sarajevo remains undecided. After the surprise loss at home on Wednesday, KK Split kept its chances alive to play in the first division of the ABA League again next season. Many news agencies did not hold back with negative reports when KK Split, with one of the biggest purses, if not with the biggest budget in the Croatian league, failed to decide the first game at Gripe in…

May 15, 2021 - The Dinamo victory against Tottenham (3-0) in the return match of the Europa League round of 16 was chosen among the 10 best matches of this season in that competition. "The Europa League cannot be compared to the universal appeal of the Champions League, but in terms of drama and top entertainment, the competition is far above its weight," the European Football Federation (UEFA) said, announcing the ten best matches of this season in the most massive European Cup. Among them is the fantastic Dinamo performance when they defeated Tottenham 3-0 at Maksimir Stadium and thus…

May 15, 2021 - Anamaria Govorčinović has become the first female Croatian canoe-sprinter to qualify for the Olympic Games!  At the canoe-sprint European Olympic qualifications on the calm waters of Szeged, Hungary, Croatian Anamaria Govorčinović achieved the Olympic norm by winning second place in the women's final of the 500-meter single kayak discipline (K-1). The Zagreb club Matija Ljubek member was second with a time of 1:56.70, while the fastest was Spaniard Isabel Contreras (1:56.15), reports HOO.  "I still can't believe it. I'm overjoyed. No, I didn’t expect it because there were nine girls in the finals, and they were all…

Zagreb, May 14, 2021 - An old-fashioned type of center-forward, Mark Viduka terrorised Premier League defences leading the line for Leeds United, Middlesbrough and Newcastle United for almost a decade from 2000 to 2009. His was a glittering and prolific career which netted 258 goals in only 507 appearances, and included captaining his country, Australia, in the 2006 World Cup, surely one of the greatest honours for any sportsman. I remember watching Viduka as an Aston Villa fan almost 20 years ago, a formidable opponent whose journey to the Premier League from his native Melbourne was anything but straightforward, and it…

May 14, 2021 - Croatian diver Budimir Šobat surpassed his record for the longest time breath held voluntarily by 22 seconds, and this time, it was not just for his beloved daughter Saša - but for the people of the earthquake-distraught city of Sisak as well. Guinness World Records even featured Budimir for his feat earlier this week.  A new world record for static apnea free-diving has been set in a pool in Sisak, Croatia, on the 27th of March, 2021. Ranked as one of the best divers in the world, according to the International Association for the Development of Apnea (AIDA), Budimir Šobat,…