President Milanović Receives Representatives of the Croatian Swimming Federation, Coaches, and Swimmers Who Won Medals at the European Championships
The President of the Republic of Croatia Zoran Milanović today received representatives of the Croatian Swimming Federation, coaches, and swimmers from the Croatian national swimming team who participated in and won medals at the European Swimming Championships held in 25-meter pools.
At the 23rd European Swimming Championships in 25-meter pools, held from 2 to 7 December 2025 in the Polish city of Lublin, the Croatian swimming team won three medals. Jere Hribar won a gold medal in the 50m freestyle, a silver in the 100m freestyle, and a bronze in the 4×50m freestyle relay alongside Nikola Miljenić, Božo Puhalović, and Luka Cvetko.
President Milanović congratulated the swimmers, their coaches, and the Croatian Swimming Federation on the Croatian team’s great success, wishing them continued medal wins. The individual medals won by Jere Hribar were the first Croatian swimming medals in nine years, while the relay medal marked the first Croatian medal in this discipline in 15 years, as highlighted during the meeting.
In addition to discussing the Croatian swimming team’s success at the European Championships, the meeting also addressed the current state of the sport, the working and training conditions of Croatian swimmers, and the future of Croatian swimming. In this context, the President of the Croatian Swimming Federation, Josip Varvodić, emphasized the need to establish a systematic development framework for basic sports – swimming, athletics, and gymnastics – and to secure stronger and continuous support from both state and sports institutions.
Varvodić also stressed the importance of introducing mandatory swimming lessons for schoolchildren in Croatia, following the example of other countries. He pointed to the alarming statistics on the large number of non-swimming children. In coastal counties, between 50 and 55 percent of first-grade primary school children do not know how to swim, while the situation is even worse in inland counties, where as much as 70 percent of children in this age group are non-swimmers.
Attending the meeting at the Office of the President were Croatian swimmers Luka Kmetić, Niko Janković, Nikola Miljenić, Luka Cvetko, Marin Mogić, and Božo Puhalović, their coaches Jakša Arambašić, Lovrenco Franičević, Domagoj Zajec, and Nenad Miloš, as well as representatives of the Croatian Swimming Federation: President Josip Varvodić, CSF Executive Board member Davor Brdar, and CSF General Secretary Marija Luburić.
Also present with President Milanović were the Head of the Office of the President Orsat Miljenić, and the President’s Sports Commissioner, Tomislav Paškvalin.
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Dario Andrišek