First Montenegrin sport magazine "Arena", daily newspapers "Vijesti" and Montenegrin TV have chosen the best athlete of 2007, yesterday in the Splendid Hotel in Budva

Ivovic wins the award

 

from:Arena, daily sport news

Aleksandar Ivovic, Jadran CKB player and a member of national team won the award for the best athlete of Montenegro for the year 2007. He won the most votes from the journalists of sports magazine “Arena”, daily newspapers “Vijesti”, national RTV, and former winners of the award. Ivovic won 54 votes, Ivan Strugar won 38, Srdjan Mrvaljevic – 26, Milorad Gajovic – 24, Milena Milacic – 7 and Petar Lucic – 0.
Nominees in the category of best Montenegrin athletes who play abroad were: Bojana Popovic (50 votes), Nikola Janovic (36), Mirko Vucinic (30), Nikola Pekovic (23) and Goran Stojanovic (11)
The award for the best team went to Montenegrin water polo national team, who won 74 votes. Montenegro handball team won 44, Basketball club “Buducnost” won 13, Volleyball club “Buducnost” - 10, Football club “Zeta” - 7 and Montenegrin karate team – 4.

 

Transfer target for big teams
He never knew for any shortcut in sport. He took the harder and longer, but better way. He worked his way to this award. He is very important part of national team, the best player of Jadran CKB. Some say, like Croatian head coach Ratko Rudic, that Ivovic is the best back there is in water polo today. He is the best athlete of Montenegro in 2007.

Aleksandar, are you surprised?
Yes, I must admit I am. After I won the award for the best athlete of Herceg Novi – I was satisfied. I didn't expect another award will come so soon.

So, you're surprised. What now?

Well, this award will only motivate me to work harder, that's for sure. I will continue working as hard, if not even harder, to win everything I can with my club and national team. I want trophies.
Are you saying that you will win some soon?
I know exactly what you mean, but all I can promise is that we will give our best to succeed at Malaga and Beijing. Our goal is to be amongst the first five teams. If we manage to reach at least one semi-final, then I am sure we would win a medal.

Ever since you became regular member of Jadran's first team, and later in the national team – you are always positive, even when everything wasn't going well. How come you're always so optimistic, where does that come from?
I don't know, but I think that my optimism is not based on nothing. Take national team's training for example – it feels really good to work when the atmosphere is so good. That's exactly why we managed to have such a good results this year. Before the game against Croatia in Dubrovnik, when we played without few of our most important players – everyone expected us to lose heavily. Even we were a bit afraid of that game. But thanks to that great atmosphere, that spirit that we have and the fact that we believe in ourselves and each other – we had the great game and almost won against, in that moment, much stronger rival. Future is, undoubtedly, ours, if we continue working as hard.

Our national team is, for sure, the pride of the nation, and you are important part of it, of the history, that begun in Novi Sad – with the defeat against Italy, and ended, the part of it, in Bratislava with the win against the same rival. How hard did you all take that defeat in the first game?

Maybe it was good, in a way, that we lost that first game. We expected a win, but we lost it. After that, against Serbia we showed that we learned our lesson, we were stronger and the most important – we realized that we can play against the strongest teams in the world, and Serbia is certainly among those teams – we showed that we are among the strongest too. After that game, our series of good results begun.

You will be 22 this month. You're young, yet you have already proved yourself to be great player. Did you expect everything to happen that fast? Did you expect that you will win everything you could with your team and be one of the most important national team players?

I had my debut for Jadran when I was 16. How? Easy, because the club's philosophy is such – to invest in young players. The club believes in its youngsters and is patient with them. Plus, I was lucky to play along the world class players.

But being talented was also very important?

Not as much as you'd think. Hard work is what makes you good player. I can only thank Petar Porobic for pushing me into becoming the player I am.

It's no secret that a lot of big clubs would like to sign you. Did you think about where you will continue your career?

I'm in no hurry. There were some offers, but I am young, I know there will be more offers in the future.

               From:«Arena«