There are moments when an athlete goes from being dubbed a star in the making to becoming an actual star.
For Velimir Stjepanovic, those moments have been a long time coming and finally arrived during last month’s European Championships where the Abu Dhabi-born Serb won two gold medals in Berlin.
The Dubai resident had already created waves on the global stage prior to the Europeans.
He won a silver and a bronze as a 17-year-old at the Youth Olympics in Singapore in 2010, made the 200m butterfly final at the London 2012 Olympics, and captured a gold and a bronze at the European Short Course Championships last December.
But his exploits in Berlin were his first major triumphs in a long course pool and saw him beat the cream of the crop to top the podium in the 200m and 400m freestyle. Within a few days, Stjepanovic was back in Serbia meeting Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and receiving congratulations from Crown Prince Alexander and tennis world No1 Novak Djokovic.
“It took a while to sink in because I didn’t know what I’d actually achieved until I went back to Serbia and I met the Prime Minister. I had press conferences all day and a lot of people now recognise me on the street,” Stjepanovic told Sport360°.
“I couldn’t go through all of my Twitter, it was just too much.
“It’s nice to be recognised for all the hard work. Swimming, a lot of people don’t see it as a very hard sport but it is actually mentally extremely challenging and in the water it’s gruelling. So it’s nice to finally have it pay off.
“It’s a really nice feeling but I can’t let that put me on cloud nine. I have to stay on the ground because there’s still a lot of work that has to be done in order for me to get the same type of results at Rio in two years’ time.”
Indeed it must be a fine line to walk.
Going big and hitting new sensational milestones yet still maintaining the eagerness and focus on one ultimate goal – the Olympic Games. Stjepanovic has adopted the right mentality to keep that balance.
“Everything is preparation for Rio, so everything that happens from now until then, is just practice basically.”
If that’s the case, then Berlin must have been one heck of a warm-up.
The 21-year-old experienced an emotional rollercoaster during his time in the German capital. In his first event, the 400m freestyle, he found himself a top contender in the final, as Paul Biedermann and Yannick Agnel – the current world record holders in the event in long course and short course respectively – both failed to make it out of the heats.
Stjepanovic snatched the opportunity and swam to gold, shaving 2.5 seconds off his personal best time to clock 3:45.66.
“I was really nervous, I had pins and needles throughout on my hands,” confessed the Hamilton Aquatics swimmer. “It was a horrible feeling. Biedermann and Agnel weren’t in the race, so I knew I had a really good shot at winning and I just went out hard and came out with the gold.”
Heading into his 200m freestyle final, the nerves were replaced by anger. That morning, Stjepanovic had missed out on making the semi-finals in the 200m butterfly, which theoretically is his signature event (he was sixth at London 2012), and knew the 200 free was now his last chance at another medal.
The stakes were even higher because this time Biedermann, a world record holder in the event, and Agnel, the reigning Olympic champion, were both with him in the pool. Still, Stjepanovic rose to the occasion to get his second gold in a time that is the fifth-fastest in the world this year.
“I was very, very angry in the evening for the final,” he says on missing out on the 200 fly. “I think that helped me in the last 25 metres (in the 200 free) because that’s all I could think of.
“Maybe it happened for a reason, maybe it didn’t. I could have easily made it into the final. I was controlling the 200 in the morning. I was trying to save as much energy as possible for the evening swim and for the semi-final after. Because it was a really hard double with only 10 minutes in between if I did make it. So I maybe over-calculated it and I missed it by five milliseconds which is pretty much nothing.
“Two golds at Europeans – okay maybe not for the two events I was actually expecting to get it on, but it’s very positive for me. I’m still going to carry on working on the 200 fly because I still think that I can do really well in it.”
Stjepanovic may play down his accomplishments in Berlin, but he is well aware of the fact that he is now more the hunted than the hunter when he dives into a pool.
“I beat Biedermann and Agnel and that’s a very big thing,” he adds. “I’m not the dark horse anymore. They’re expecting it this time. They’re not going to be thinking ‘oh he’s not going to do anything, he’s going to go out hard and die’ which is pretty much what used to happen. I used to go out pretty hard then I wouldn’t be able to bring it back but now I’m a bit older and I’ve trained hard and now I can keep up with the big boys.”
He certainly kept up in the opening two legs of the Swimming World Cup in Doha and Dubai last week.
The switch from long course to short course was quite abrupt but Stjepanovic won silver in the 200 and 400 free in both Gulf cities and he plans on preparing for the upcoming World Short Course Championships in Doha (December 3-7) by competing in the remaining legs of the series.
Of his chances in Doha, he says: “I’m fairly confident in making final and like I always say: just make the final and then anything can happen.”
