The joy of standing at the highest Olympic podium with a golden medal around the neck and singing the national anthem played for the first time since our sportswomen and men compete at the Olympics under the name Serbia, was a privilege of a 20-year old girl from Belgrade – member of Serbia’s taekwondo national team Milica Mandić.
For the first time, at this year’s Olympic Games in London, Serbia had its representatives in taekwondo – the Korean martial art characterized by spectacular kicking techniques and speed. Nobody ever imagined that this would be the sport to win the 100th Olympic medal for Serbia and celebrate our country at the Olympics. Perhaps that is the right reason why our taekwondo team stunned everyone with the Olympic gold. Milica Mandić was the only Serbian representative in taekwondo in the category over 67 kg at the Olympics.
In 2011 she won the bronze medal at the World Championship, and in 2012 she won silver at the European Championship, but she became a true heroine of Serbian sports after she won a series of victories, qualified for the finals and then won the gold in London.
In the same day Milica beat the two rivals that previously seemed untouchable. In the quarter-finals she beat the Olympic champion from Beijing, and in semi-finals she beat the two-time bronze and two-time gold winner at the European Championships in the last three years, while in the finals she beat the present European champion and the first favorite – the French representative, An-Caroline Graf.
The path to the historic success wasn’t easy at all. As the only competitor of the Belgrade taekwondo club “Galeb” in her category, before the Olympics Milica Mandić trained with her male colleagues who imitated the moves of her rivals that they previously studied in detail.
Just before the Olympics Milica was optimistic, but she asked to be left alone in order to transform the years of sacrifice, hard work and every-day trainings into the greatest sport recognition.
Milica Mandić trains two times a day, and in 2011 she had only three-to-four weeks of free time. Apart from training and sports, Milica lives just like her peers in Serbia. She likes long walks in Belgrade, drinking coffee with friends in “Flert” and basketball matches of her favorite team “Partizan”.
However, she spends most of her time with her sister and parents in a single room of a small apartment that surely doesn’t provide her all the conditions for relaxation and lifestyle necessary for a top sportswoman.
The hall where Milica Mandić trained to become an Olympic champion is also not even close to the required quality.
Actually it is a garage that her coach Dragan Jović transformed into a training room. In order to do that, he sold his apartment and moved with his family into a rented apartment.
In these circumstances any better results are a miracle, but despite that Jović proved that he can create top champions even in such conditions not worthy of champions
With strong will, Milica managed to overcome all difficulties and fearlessly climbed to the very Olympic top of the taekwondo world.
After the fantastic results of this beautiful Belgrade girl, we can surely say that taekwondo will become even more popular in Serbia. Our golden Olympian Milica Mandić, her colleagues and trainers are hoping that after her success Serbia will pay more attention to this sport and support its promotion and development.
Photos: Olympic Committee of Serbia
