Issue link: http://itf.uberflip.com/i/699819
57 GORAN PRPIC Croatia BARCELONA 1992 MEN'S DOUBLES BRONZE O nce you get to the podium, you feel how big it is to win a medal at the Olympic Games and also we were representing Croatia for the first time in 1992 in the Olympics, so it was a really big thing for me personally and also for our country. There were tennis players and basketball players and some other teams. There were big expectations for the tennis players, for Ivanisevic and me and the [Croatian] basketball team. The feeling is that it makes you proud and you feel you have done something for the first time because the presentation of our medal was the first medal for Croatia. Even now, my skin is tingling and there are nice memories. In the semifinals, we [with Goran Ivanisevic] lost in five sets and we had a good chance to make the finals. In the Olympics, only the medals count and it was a completely different feeling. Even at the age of 17 Goran was a quarterfinalist at the Australian Open. He was young and an upcoming star and he was close to winning an even better medal than a bronze medal – everybody could see this. The basketball team won a silver medal, Ivanisevic won a bronze medal in singles, we won a bronze medal in doubles. Competing in Croatia's first Olympics was a very big thing for us. A year before the Olympics, we were still playing as Yugoslavia and I remember the Davis Cup. We got into the semifinals and we Croatians decided not to play because the war had started. All these things that were happening at home were really difficult. We just became a new country. In Barcelona, the Village was next to the sea, so a lot of athletes were at the beach talking to each other, singing songs and having fun. You could see athletes as normal people having fun and not just being professionals and focused all the time. The medal has not changed me. I am just proud of my career and the things that I am doing in sports. Some people do not know what the French Open is, but everyone knows what an Olympic medal is. Competing in Croatia's first Olympics was a very big thing for us. Competing in Croatia's first Olympics was a very big thing for us.