An Olympic medal is the most beautiful reward for hard work and perseverance

Slovenia is a small country, but it can boast of great sports stories. The most beautiful are certainly written by the Olympic Games.

Every athlete wants to take home a medal from this competition. This is the best reward for many years of hard work, sacrifice and perseverance.

One of the most beautiful stories of the Beijing Olympics was provided by snowboarder Gloria Kotnik, who surprised with third place in the parallel giant slalom.

Prior to that, she even temporarily stopped training as her body needed rest. She no longer had the energy and motivation, snowboarding was no longer a pleasure for her. She also became a mother a year ago. Then she decided to race on, and finally she managed to make her dream come true.

The silver medal was won by Tim Mastnak on the same day. He loves snowboarding a lot. He says this is the key to success: »It’s hard to be successful in a sport if you don’t enjoy it.«

The medal for the mixed jumping team was the most anticipated.

Urša Bogataj and Nika Križnar once again stood on the stage for the winners, this time accompanied by Peter Prevc and Timi Zajc.

They put a gold medal around their necks on Prešeren’s Day, and so Zdravljica [the Slovenian national anthem, with the lyrics being a poem by France Prešeren] was played on this very holiday.

But the good results were not over. Žan Kranjec skied well on the first run in the giant slalom – he got the eighth best time. In the second, he managed a dream performance from the start to the finish.

Despite the winding track and poor visibility, he won a silver medal! »The Olympic medal is something amazing. I dreamed about it,« he said after this great success.

In total, this is already six medals for Slovenia. We hope to report on some more by the end of the games on February 20th.

Points To Consider

1. Do you ever feel without energy and motivation?
2. When did you work hard to achieve your desired goal?
3. Do you know sports like bobsled, curling and skeleton?

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The original version of this article was published on February 14th.

English translation courtesy of JL Flanner, Total Slovenia News, an English language website with news from and about Slovenia.