Sport in Croatia
The most enduring sport by far in Croatia is football, and is played on amateur and professional levels amongst all age groups across the entire country.
Several other major team sports are handball, basketball and water polo, with clubs in all parts of Croatia.
With the exception of the years during the World War Two Independent State of Croatia, Croatian club and national teams first represented the Republic of Croatia at the start of the 1990s, with the formation of the Croatian national football team and its first match against the United States in 1990.
At the start of the 2nd half of the 20th century, RK Bjelovar dominated Croatian handball, and in the 1970s won five Yugoslav league championships.
In 1972 RK Bjelovar won the EHF Champions League, Europe's greatest handball competition, and reached the final the following year.
A smaller city, Bjelovar's reign of successes can be likened to that of the storied Vince Lombardi–era Green Bay Packers of the National Football League, as the town of Green Bay, Wisconsin, the smallest NFL market in the United States, brought home five league championships in the 1960s.
The club has reached the EHF Champions League finals six times, winning consecutively in 1992 and 1993.
In 2008, the club acquired Croatian star Ivano Balić, considered the best handballer of all time.
One of the most notable Croatian basketballers was Dražen Petrović, who died in a car accident in June 1993.
He is considered a crucial part of the vanguard to the present-day mass influx of European players into the NBA and he was posthumously enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
HAVK Mladost from Zagreb is a seven time European champion (1968, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1990, 1991 and 1996) and was awarded the title Best Club of the 20th Century by the LEN.
Rugby union in pre-independence Croatia was a moderately popular sport, but due to its recent international successes, it is gaining more recognition.
Janica Kostelić is the most successful female alpine ski racer in the history of the Winter Olympic Games.
Blanka Vlašić is the best-known Croatian track and field athlete; she specialises in the high jump.
Goran Ivanišević became the first ever wildcard to win Wimbledon when he won his first and only Grand Slam title in 2001.
Croatian athletes have had considerable success in individual sports as well, where they represented Croatia in international competitions at the highest level.
