Rastko and Viktoria’s journey from EKO Mini Volleyball league to Montenegro’s senior national teams
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The largest sports project specifically designed for children in Montenegro, the EKO Mini Volleyball league organised by the Montenegrin Volleyball Federation (OSCG), sponsored by Jugopetrol AD, and supported by the European Volleyball Confederation (CEV), the Ministry of Sports and Youth, and the Montenegrin National Olympic Committee, is being successfully implemented for the seventh time, thereby involving a record number of girls and boys aged nine to 13.
Viktoria Đukić“Through the EKO Mini Volleyball league I fell even more in love with this sport. After that, I decided to make it my life. The reward for my hard work and dedication was an invitation to join the senior national team.”
Setter from Budućnost Volley and former EKO Mini Volleyball league competitor
The Montenegrin Volleyball Federation initiated this project eight years ago, and its pride lies not only in its ability to involve such a terrific number of kids, but also in the fact that through the EKO Mini Volleyball league have recently emerged two new members of the senior national teams, Rastko Milenković from Budva and Viktoria Đukić from Budućnost.
“We have trained hard, and in the end, our efforts paid off. We started by playing the EKO Mini Volleyball league, and now I am in the senior national team, hoping to continue in the same vein,” said Rastko Milenković, who currently is playing as a setter at Budva, the reigning national champions of Montenegro.
As many as 900 children are introduced to Volleyball with the help of the EKO Mini Volleyball league and they gather almost every weekend in the sports hall of the Gymnasium Slobodan Škerović in the Balkan country’s capital city, Podgorica.
Ivan Bošković“We are very happy to see such a large number of children in the sports hall, engaging in sports, and of course, we are even happier when they choose to play Volleyball. That was our goal when we started this project, to keep children engaged in Volleyball, thereby surely aiding volleyball clubs in Montenegro. The goal of our project is not just results, but mass participation as well."
Secretary General of the Volleyball Federation of Montenegro
“From the very beginning, we believed in this project, and we said at the outset that our desire was one day to see children who started playing the EKO Mini Volleyball league compete for the senior national team of Montenegro, and that dream is now coming true. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who believed in us and in our project, starting with Jugopetrol, our sponsor and supporter from the very beginning, as well as the Ministry of Sports, the Montenegrin Olympic Committee, and the European Volleyball Confederation,” Bošković concludes.