Volleyball, Tae Kwon Do and water polo skills earned Serbia’s top athletic participants honors for their outstanding 2016 performance at a recent Belgrade Olympic Committee Day ceremony, distributed by the Serbian team’s official bank, Vojvodjanska Banka.
 
Against the backdrop of the National Assembly in Nikola Pašic Square, the event recognized athletes, teams and coaching personnel in several sports for their performances in the Rio de Janeiro-based Olympics last summer.
 
To commemorate a new record for Serbia and acknowledge the most outstanding player in the category of individual sports, Serbia’s Olympic Committee presented a trophy to wrestling champion Davor Stefanek in honor of his victory -- bringing home the nation’s first-ever gold medal.

Stefanek defeated Armenia's Migran Arutyunyan in Rio to win the Greco-Roman wrestling tournament after decades of Olympics participation.
 
In recognition of the nation’s women volleyball players, who made history by scoring the first Olympic medal for Serbia, Vojvodjanska Banka Executive Board President Marinos Vathis presented an award to team member Bianka Busa.
 
Serbia’s awards for top athlete for the year went to Tae Kwon Do player Tijana Bogdanovic, who brought home a silver medal from the Olympic Games, and Filip Filipovic, scoring the gold medal for Serbia’s national water polo team.
 
Filipovic’s entire team as well as its coach, Dejan Savic, also won awards -- for best team and best coach, respectively. In addition, honors for the best young athlete of the year went to a water polo player, Nikola Jaksic.