Milena Reljin - Info collage

[*rotkwicca*]

First, hello to everybody . I've been following RG for a few years now and iIam really enjoying it. I was hanging around this site long before I actually joined it. I really liked the atmosphere here, and I learned a lot about RG, as I was rather a casual fan before. As well as getting info on gymnasts of today, I learned a bit about the rsg stars of the past. On most of the great gymnasts of the 80s for example, there is lot of articles, pictures and even videos. I wondered if there is any info about one of the true legends of the sport, which didn't gain her status as much with her competitive successes, as with her presence and originality, my country's own Milena Reljin.
I did a bit of ressearch online, and found some information, which is actually pretty scarce comparing to the others, but still very useful.
here are two links in english

Short Wikipedia Article

Wonderful feature on Milena,from 2000

I also found a few articles in serbian, so I took the liberty to translate some of them and post them here.

One I found online and is from 2003, and the other is really fresh, from January this year, published in our daily newspaper: The second one actually inspired me to start the topic .

Enjoy

(articles continued in the next post)

[*rotkwicca*]

2003

The prettier side of the sport

In her own and till these days, Milena Reljin remains the symbol of rhythmic gymnastics in Yugoslavia. She won 9 consecutive national titles, competed at 2 Olympic games (Los Angeles, 1984, 5th overall, and Seoul, 1988, 9th overall), 5 world championships (in Sarajevo 1989, 6th overall, 5th hoop and rope, 7th ball) and 3 European championships.

After retiring she worked as a coach for Partizan club (1990-2002). In year 2003 she founded her own RG club Ritam. Since it’s founding the club organizes annual presentations when members of this club, as well as international guests, showed their abilities in RG. In 2003 the guest was the famous Bulgarian coach Neshka Robeva, whom Milena greatly admires and considers the best coach in the world.

“Rhytmic gymnastics should be obligatory for little girls”, says Milena, “For competitive success there should be less children and more time to work, but our goal is to primarily give girls the chance to practice something useful, for their physical development before all, and who wishes to practice competitive sport has a great chance to do so. Rhytmics is great basis for artistic gymnastics, as well as for other sports. Volleyball coaches, for example, say how it’s absolutely wonderful to work with girls who have previously done RG”

At Ritam, girls can get involved with RG starting from the age of four.

“Even if we don’t have ideal conditions, more and more girls are coming, Reljin continues, “They often connect RG with ballet, which is really attractive for them at that age. This sport provides them great development, sense of rhythm and grace. At our presentation several of us former gymnasts also participated. Our presentation showed people the universal values which RG presents.”

Milena herself started the sport rather coincidentally. At her primary school, she joined her friend at the age of 9, leaving folk dance and all other activities behind. The rest is history.

[*rotkwicca*]

And here is the most recent article, the one that actually tickled me to post this topic. It was published in Serbia's greatest daily newspaper Politika, and it actually wasn't in the sports section, but in the section where they present the most prominent and interesting people of Belgrade. The article starts with a bit of rambling by its author, him saying how he had no idea who Milena was before interviewing her so i guess i'll skip that part .

....Milena Reljin, today mother of three, from 1977 when she started practising gymnastics, participated in two Olympics (LA and Seoul), at 5 worlds and 3 European championships, as well as numerous Balkan champs, world and Euro cups, different tournaments... (The author said he actually got dizzy with the number of competitions Milena participated in )
The child of Mita Reljin, basketball player and coach in Radnicki, and Vukosava Milanovic-Reljin, basketball player of Radnicki and later Partizan, started training gymnastics at her primary school. It all was a coincidence. She was nine and she was rather attracted to folk dance which she was practising and her friend Mira was doing rhythmic gymnastics. Once at sports center "Sumice "Milena was waiting for her friend to finish her practice. Then she decided to leave folk dance and to dedicate herself to the new sports discipline. Mira, on the other hand, fell in love with folk dance, and stopped doing rhytmics .
"Sport was all around me, but not much people knew about rhytmics.", Milena recalls.
Milena started practising with coach Olivera Radosavljevic at rhytmic club "Senjak". Olivera's daughter Jasna Tomin later took care of the younger girls, amongst which Milena was.
"I associate some of the most difficult moments in this sport with Jasna. When she told us she was going to another club to coach, I couldn't believe what she was saying, that she isn't going to train us anymore. Parting of our ways really took me hard. Even if she was 9 years older than I am, Jasna was my teacher, my role model, she was everything for me then. I couln't compare even the hardest moments in competitions, such as when the ribbon falls off the stick and in the third second of the exercise, with her leaving.", Milena rememers with sadness in her eyes.
And yes, there indeed were a lot of terrifying moments, stressfull occasions which cannot be forgotten. One of these events happened at the World Championships in Sarajevo, 1989.
"Even when I speak about it now, there's a lump in my throat. I was supposed to start my exercise, and my pianist was nowhere near. I cannot go on the carpet, in front of judges and audience, without musical accompanying. Those seconds were like eternity. And then I saw my pianist Sasa Smic jumping over obstacles in front of him in almost panter-like jumps and seating himself at the piano. It wasn't until then I could start my exercise", Milena speaks excited, as it happened yesterday, "That was indeed an unforgettable exercise. My coach Nada Vuckovic-Pisic told me to relax and enjoy the exercise, which was rope, accompanied with "Djurdjevdan" by Laza Ristovski. I just flied then, the whole sports hall was singing".
That was her last, "farewell", performance. At the age of 22, she joined Partizan club and started training young girls.
Now Milena has her own club, "Ritam". She founded the club in 2002. Milena is the director and head coach of around 400 girls, aged 4 to13. She is aided by 10 more coaches, and here right hand is Maja Mandic, with whom she trains the 27 most talented gymnast. Milena is married to Nenad Tatic and is a proud mother of three, Mina (10), Djordje(9) and Dunja(6). She has been an international judge for rhytmics gymnastics at two world's and three European championships, as well as several international tournaments. She is very pleased that she has been a straight A student in primary and secondary school, and graduated at The Faculty of Physical Education in Belgrade, as well as having a sports career.
"I am very pleased and proud that the girls I coached achived success and became my best friends. Those are Iva Zimonjic, Natasa Kolarevic, Marija Ignjatovic and Sanja Dimitrijevic. They have all graduated from universitiy and are great persons."....

Then comes in the author conclusion, saying that he barely could keep his eyes open during the interview, cause Milena had a special, gem-like glow around her.

Hope the translations were ok

I'd love to see anyone else contibute anything else about Milena, such as info, pics or videos, if he has any, I'd absolutely love to see them. It would also be great if someone has seen her performing, to comment on her work or anything else

[Bri]

fantastic! I wrote that wikipedia article, I couldnt find any information on her! you're wonderful thank you so much!!!!

[Rhythmicfriend]

DO you have any information about the Gymnast KATERINA BABIC ?

[*rotkwicca*]

Bri, i'm really glad you enjoyed this . In the meantime, I actually found some more articles concerning Milena and our rhythmic gymnastics, which apparently isn't in the best of its days now,(because of the financial and other difficulties). However, I found an article where it says that our juniors will go to Euros in Portugal 2006 It is really annoying me how little coverage does RG get in our media. I only found that Milena's club had a presentation, when it was published in a newspaper that it was held two days before.
Do you by any chance have video of Milena performing? I would like to see it soooo much
Rhytmicfriend, I can't explain to you how difficult it was to find this information about a gymnastic legend such as Milena, not to mention less known gymnasts. I'll check if i have any info in a book I have, it's sort of a chronicle of YUG sport, if i find something, i'll let you know

[Bri]

[*rotkwicca*]

Indeed

I looked up that book on YUG sport and it more or less tells the same things form the articles, mostly results. Nothing on Katarina Babic either.

BUT Some more random Milena Info

-she is the president of a special "Women in sport" comittee under Olympic Comittee of Serbia and Montenegro

-she teaches at a sports academy in Belgrade, department of fitness and strength sports

-she said the most difficult apparatus for handling for her were clubs and ribbon

-due to unfavourable conditions, in her club Ritam, girls practice 2 hours maximum and not even every day, the club only competes at the Belgrade League competition

-at her time, she practiced 2-3 hours a day, but she says it is now unimaginable for world class gymnast, where minimum of 5 is required

-she thinks that the current code is really difficult, demanding a lot of sacrifice, effort and time for greater achievements

[*rotkwicca*]

Hey, i've just seen that wikipedia article has been updated Was it you Bri ?

[illy]

[starbuck]

Every time I see this name on the top I wonder who is this woman? Yes, I read all the articles, but I still ask you who is she?Why is she still so important? As Illy said, she was gymnast 30 years ago! She had some good results but nothing that impresive.There are bigger names from that time than Milena Reljin!

I'm not even sure who in this forum is interested in this old lady. I think writting so much about her is ridiculous. People want to read about gymnasts who are active and important today!!!

[*rotkwicca*]

Don't kill the messenger
I didn't write all that, i just translated some information i found, and put it here if someone is interested. If noone is interested that is not my fault... Actually, Bri made a request on some other topic for information to complete some gymnasts biographies at Wikipedia, and Milena was on that list too, and i bumped into the article in the newspaper, so i figured "why not"...
Everyone is offcourse entitled to their own opinion. I don't have any opinion on Milena since I don't know her personally, and I also don't know exactly why SCG gymnastics is in such a bad state. There are certainly more factors to it. I would certainly like to hear more of your views on this matter as you seem to be more acquitaned with it than i am, since i am just a fan(of RG, not Milena, I can't be her fan because i haven't even seen her routines...) I really appreciate the diplomatic tone of your message and thank you for being like that. A healthy debate is what we need here.
This topic wasn't meant to be a praise, but rather, as the topic says, an info collage. Just like any news, you can choose to view it or not to view it. I hope you didn't see this topic as some sort of propaganda, as it wasn't my intention at all.
Me too would like to see more information about current gymnasts, it is indeed a paradox that we can see more articles on someone who was active 30 years ago than gymnasts of today. Take Marina Shpekht for example. Whatever i spell her name (Shpekht, Shpeht, Speht....) at Google it gives me only up to 150 results, most of it is just result lists, apart from great number of beautiful photographs at photo sites and blogs. I even typed the name the original Russian spelling, 553 results, but those actually relating exactly to Marina stops at almost the same quota as typing in international spelling. Again it's results, reports, a few photos here and there. From all the information i've found i can only see when she was born, what's her hometown, what's her coach, what titles did she got... and if i'm lucky, what is her hobby (books) and favourite apparatus (all)...
Interestingly enough, when we're already at the subject of accuracy and availability or information on RG on the on the Internet, check the FIG site, biographies section, on SCG page there are three entries, there is 1 on MR, without ANY data except that she is a student(!). If anyone wants info one can only seek for it on forums and if he's lucky on certain sites, such as "Whatever happened to..." one for older gymnasts. It is another question whether anyone would bother or be interested in such things as a biography of an "old lady". There are gymnasts older than her and who achieved similar results but there are still in the spotlight because their videos are widely available. Just check the Old videos and photos thread in Photos and Videos forum. And gymnasts don't get popular just by their results... As you see today there is an emphasis on results, but those who win the titles are not always the most appreciated and popular (that is again an another subject). There are some remembered gymnasts who are not winners by statistics. I am not reffering to Milena, as i've already said, I haven't seen her routines, don't know her in person, and im not competent to judge. It is indeed,as you emphasized, a problem, when a small country, not a huge RG force, has one athlete who is symbol of its discpiline and no matter anyone else does he remains in the shadow of the "legend". Whether the "legend" gained its status rightfully or not...
I am not going to post anything more on this topic if not really neccessary, such as this response. I just needed to say that getting information on the internet is not such an easy task as one may think and if we really want to read about new gymnasts there should be a lot of effort put into collecting information, not only from Internet, but from newspapers, Tv, insiders and so on... I would too like to see RG covered more than just mere results, tables, numbers... I guess that numbers never really mattered here, it is the spirit of the sport that makes us follow it, right?

[illy]

I'm glad that you understand me completely. The point IS that everything and everybody from RG in our country is in the shadow of this "legend". I'm afraid there will never be any information on new gymnasts in newspapers, on internet nor TV while Milena Reljin exists ( and maybe not even after her ). She has monopoly on all the media and all financial help in SCG because of her famous name. The rest of us can only struggle to survive.That is what makes me so devastated. Whatever the rest of us do it is never appreciated.

The big sport legend is someone who uses his or hers own name to promote the sport, not vice versa- to selfishly use the whole sport as his or hers own propaganda (which is Milena's case )!!!

I apologize if I was harsh, but I hope that you can understand my anger!

Now I leave you to enjoy RG as much as possible because the sport deserves it (more than people in it )!

[Findis]

[quote="starbuck"

I'm not even sure who in this forum is interested in this old lady. I think writting so much about her is ridiculous. People want to read about gymnasts who are active and important today!!![/quote]

Maybe because some people find gymnasts in the past more interesting than gymnasts who are active and important today. I can watch Kostina's routines all day long, but I find Kabaeva and Kapranova's routines absolutely dull. In the Russian wires, I see about 10-20 different news items about Kabaeva every week and I skip over all of them. However, if they interview Lobach or Timoshenko, I'm all eyes.

Back to Reljin. She was an interesting gymnast, worth watching. Could not leap to save her life but great choreography, expression, and of course, unlike most gymnasts today, apparatus handling skills. For some reason though, I used to always get her confused with Andrea Sinko, another interesting eastern european gymnast, frequently in event finals and top 10. I watched 1987 Worlds a few weeks back and was struck by just how good the field was. You had the Soviets and Bulgarians but below them, there were tons of quality gymnasts with routines worth watching again: Sinko, Reljin, Akiyama, Simpson, Folga, Lloret, Butaru just to name a few. So to finish eighth in that field is no small feet.
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[*rotkwicca*]