The year started with the World Handball Cup held in Qatar. Although it was the 24th festival of the best selections of the world, it stayed in a special memory for the national handball team of B&H. This was the first major tournament at which we participated. Public expectations were high, but the inexperience of our team was crucial. We finished the competition in the penultimate position in the group, with the result of one win and four defeats. In the end, we finished the tournament as the 20th selection, out of 24 participants. France won the World Cup, which was better than the host of the tournament – the national team of Qatar in finals.
Damir Dzumhur will remember this year’s Roland Garros for a long time. The B&H tennis player qualified for the 3rd round, repeating his greatest success in Grand Slam tournaments. He owes that success to the last year’s Australian Open where he reached the third round. However, he fulfilled his lifelong dream this year in France. He was standing on the terrain facing his tennis role model – Roger Federer. It was a dream match for Dzumhur. Although defeated, he showed decent resistance to one of the best players of all times. Our best ranked tennis player generally has a very good year behind him. He won three Challenger tournaments, he had his first victory in an ATP tournament in Zagreb, and later on, he reached the semifinals in Casablanca, on the tournament series ATP 250. He was continuously among the 100 best players of the world, and he ended his tennis season on the 82nd place.
The year was marked by Novak Djokovic, who eventually had an impressive record of 82 wins and only six defeats, won three Grand Slam tournaments and six Masters Series. This is considered one of the best seasons for a tennis player in history.
It’s hard to talk about 2015 and the domestic sport, and not to mention Amel Tuka, our athlete who very quickly, just as quick as he is running, won hearts of all Bosnians. Quiet, reserved and humble, but with incredible abilities. He won the first place at the Diamond League meetings in Velenje, Madrid and Monaco, where he set the best time on 800 meters in 2015 and the 11th score of all times. To crown a great year, he won the third place on the World Athletics Championships, and brought bronze medal to B&H and the first medal in the history of B&H athletics from the world championships. He’s only 25 years old and we are yet to see his best edition. Regarding his form and his enormous will to work and improve, B&H can rightly expect one of the medals from the upcoming Olympic Games that will be held in Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 2016.
This year’s best sport story was told by the cadet basketball team of our country. They brought gold medal to B&H from the European Championship with fantastic game, and the best result in the history of our country when it comes to team sports with ball. Musa, Campara, Sikiras and the other boys, have defeated Spain after two overtimes, in the semifinals, and defeated the hosts in the final tournament – the selection of Lithuania. Led by the head coach Josip Pandza, they have won the epithet of the best selection under 16 years old, in Europe.
(Source: novovrijeme.ba)
