Our Associations

Working Bodies

RIJEKA SPORTS ASSOCIATION FOR PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

ASSOCIATION PRESIDENT:
– Miljenko Mišljenović

ASSOCIATION VICEPRESIDENT:
– Ivan Kombol

EXECUTIVE BOARD:
– Miljenko Mišljenović – President
– Ivan Kombol – Vice President
– Zvonimir Brozić – Member
– Nikola Uzelac – Member
– Hrvoje Usmiani – Member

SUPERVISORY BOARD:
– Jasna Lulić Drenjak – President
– Bojan Sušanj – Member
– Ivan Tomičić – Member

SECRETARY:
– Luka Dobrović, mag. oec.

History

Primorje-Gorski Kotar County Disability Sports Association is founded in accordance with related laws of the Republic of Croatia by registering in Associations Register of the Republic of Croatia. It is registered March 3rd, 2007 as a successor of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County Sports and Recreation Association of Persons with Disabilities, which by the new law stopped operating.

Association’s main activities:

  • promotion of members’ common interests and coordination of their program activities,
  • participation in conditions establishment for the organization and the competition system in the Republic of Croatia,
  • monitoring and reviewing current issues regarding covering costs of athletes with disabilities in the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County,
  • organization of sports activities for the persons with disabilities in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, and the organization of competitions at all levels and in all sports that are under the auspices of the Croatian Paralympic Committee and the Croatian Deaf Sports Association,
  • development of international and inter-county (regional) cooperation programs, and cooperation with as many as possible sports clubs of persons with disabilities,
  • application of the Paralympic movement principles through the cooperation with similar organizations in Croatia and abroad,
  • provision of material resources to carry out mentioned activities.

 

The History Of Disability Sports in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County

Disability Sports in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County have long lasting and continuous time track. There are no documented data of the pre-World War activities, and the after war activities related to sports and recreation of disabled persons are mostly reported in the context of events and socialization of the disabled war veterans through the Associations of Veterans of National Liberation (NOR).

During the fifties, there are reported recreation activities in that time district of Rijeka, but with no organized sports competitions in the classical sense of paralympic sport as we know it today.

It was not until the seventies that former Yugoslavia experienced an increase in volume of disabled people doing sports. It is documented that in 1972 Yugoslavia took part at the Paralympic Games that were held in the German Heidelberg. Our athletes Milka Milinković and the late Ivica Pribanić participated at these Paralympics and they were the only athletes from the Croatia.

Sources from following period report more organized sports activities of athletes with disabilities in our county. It’s been founded the Rijeka Sports and Recreation Association of Persons with Disabilities, through which several dozens of persons with disabilities practice sports, still mostly recreationally.

Formally organized sports activities for people with disabilities in Croatia date back to 1965, when the Croatian Sports and Recreation Alliance of Persons with Disabilities is founded. In 1991 it got transformed in the Croatian Sports Alliance of Disabled Persons, and in 2006 it became the Croatian Paralympic Committee.

In 1973 in Rijeka, Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, it was founded the Rijeka District Sports and Recreation Alliance for Persons with Disabilities. Later on it got its name changed to the Municipality of Rijeka Sports and Recreation Alliance.
    
After the Croatian independence from Yugoslavia, a newly formed Rijeka Sports and Recreation Association for Persons with Disabilities gathers around hundred and fifty persons with disabilities practicing several sports. Besides Rijeka association, there is another association in Kraljevica – Lanterna, and there are several individual athletes training in Lovran town and in Gorski Kotar district. Some athletes reached notable results in athletics, shooting, table tennis and in bowling.

After the adoption of the new Sports law, sports for deaf persons and persons with hearing problems was separated from the sports for persons with physical disabilities. That led to the foundation of Croatian Sports Alliance of Deaf Persons. It had a subsidiary in Rijeka – Rijeka Sports Alliance of Deaf Persons. In 2009 it was registered the new Rijeka Sports Association for Persons with Disabilities.

The sport of people with disabilities in the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County is today quite well developed. According to the data of the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia, in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County is the largest number of sports association for persons with disabilities and largest number of athletes with disabilities, compared to other Croatian counties.

Primorje-Gorski Kotar County and the City of Rijeka grew seven paralympics athletes: late Ivica Pribanić and late Branko Šonje, Milka Milinković, Rudolf Petrović, Miroslav Matić, Vjekoslav Gregorović and Zoran Talić.

At the 2012 London Paralympic Games, our athlete Milka Milinković became the world’s only athlete who has participated nine times at the Paralympic Games. The same year we marked the great jubilee – forty years of the sports of persons with disabilities in the Primorje-Gorski Kotar County.