Through her photographic lens, she recorded the history of the city, and behind the table tennis table, she created its sporting history. She preserved some of the Pljevlja residents forever in photographs, and taught some to hold a racket. Even today, when she has entered her eightieth year, she does not give up on training, competition, and the desire to get back on skis.
There are few people who can say that they practically brought a sport to their city. Dara Knezevic it can. Thanks to her persistence and love for table tennis, in the 1960s, Pljevlja got its first and only registered table tennis club, from which numerous champions later emerged.
She was born in Nova Pazova, Serbia, to a family with roots in Montenegro. She picked up a racket for the first time at the age of ten, never realizing that this sport would define her entire life.
"I started playing for Mladost from Nova Pazova, when I was ten years old. I continued in high school, and then I moved to Mladost from Zrenjanin, where the coach was my father." Sasa Karakašević"I played league with them," recalls Dara Knežević, who still remembers every detail of her first matches.
He also reveals a recipe that still captivates with energy today.
"Sports have given me health, friends and a will to live. That's why I always tell young people to do sports. Age is not an obstacle if you don't give up on yourself," she says.
Her life story, however, is not only written with sports, but also with love.
It all started in 1963 at the stadium in Zagreb, when a young Pljevljak Momo Knezevic taught the Relay of Youth to Josip Broz Tito. Dara was among the thousands of people.
"I saw him then and decided to meet him. I came to my grandmother in Glisnica, but also with the intention of finding Mom. I was overjoyed when I met him and I stayed in Pljevlja forever," she says.
Even today, she does not hide her emotions when she talks about her husband, who passed away twenty years ago.
Upon arriving in Pljevlja, she wanted to continue playing table tennis. Instead of a gym and a club, she found a completely different picture.
"They told me that there was no table tennis club in Pljevlja. It was played in garages, on the street, on inadequate tables. I couldn't accept that a city didn't have the conditions for the sport I love so much," says Dara.
Instead of giving up, she decided to create what didn't exist.
She founded the Table Tennis Club “Partizan”, named after the hall where they trained in the then Cultural Center in the city center. Thanks to her persistence, five professional tables were acquired, which was unthinkable at the time.
"The hall was empty, big and beautiful. I managed to get the Federation to buy me five tables. At that time, no one in Montenegro had a hall with five tables. We started training seriously and the interest was huge," says Dara, the woman who built this sport in Pljevlja from the ground up.
More than fifty boys and girls came to the first enrollment.
However, the conditions were far from ideal. The windows in the hall were broken, the heating was almost non-existent, and the high ceilings made it even more difficult to heat the space.
"The children were blowing on their frozen hands in the winter, shivering from the cold, but they didn't miss training. They loved table tennis so much," says Dara.
The results came very quickly.
Her club produced the pioneer champion of Montenegro. Mile Sokic, then Željko Anđelić, Branko Vucetic and numerous other players who have represented Pljevlja for years at the MOSI games and other competitions. He especially remembers Belma Hadžiosmanović, now a doctor at the Health Center in Pljevlja, who stood out with great talent.
Although the Table Tennis Club “Partizan” quickly started to show results and attract a large number of children, its work did not last long. Dara says that the turning point was when she was asked to dismantle and remove the table tennis tables from the hall after each training session with the children.
"It was impossible to do that with the children after every class, and then the club practically stopped working," recalls Dara.
Since then, Pljevlja has not had a new registered table tennis club. However, that did not extinguish her love for the sport. Six or seven years ago, she built two halls in her yard, where she now gathers former table tennis players and friends three times a week. It is in these halls that she is currently preparing the Pljevlja team for MOSI.
Dara also played for Berane for a long time as a member of the first women's team from Montenegro that won a place in the First Federal League of Yugoslavia, which was a historic success for Montenegrin sports.
Age is no obstacle for her today.
"I go out on the line against every table tennis player. My shoulder limits me a little, but my will is the same," says Dara, who still enjoys every point today.
She almost regularly wins one of the top three places at veteran championships. In Herceg Novi a few years ago, since there weren't enough women in her category, she also competed in the men's 72+ competition.
"They accepted me, they didn't know how I played. In the end, I won third place among men, and first in the women's competition for 42+ years," she says.
And table tennis is not her only love: even though she is on the threshold of her ninth decade, she still loves to ski.
"I didn't go skiing last year. On my last ski trip, I fell and hurt my knee, but I don't plan on giving up. I hope to get back on skis," she says.
In the corner of one of the halls, right next to the tables and rackets, her ski equipment is neatly stacked. She is waiting for a new winter and a new opportunity to get back on her skis, because she is not giving up on that love, nor on table tennis.
When asked what is crucial for a good table tennis player, he gives the answer without thinking.
"Intelligence is very important. You have to read your opponent, know how to return the ball and what shot to outsmart him with," Dara points out.
Her sports story is not the only one worth admiring.
In parallel with sports, she also built a successful photography career. For decades, she ran her photography shop in Pljevlja, which has served generations of her fellow citizens. Her lens has captured countless family moments, celebrations and important events in the city, as well as the arrival of the legendary world chess champion. Mikhail Talja to the Pljevlja Thermal Power Plant when it was opened.
Perhaps that is why photography and sports seem like two sides of the same coin in her life.
"A photographer has to recognize the right moment before it disappears. A table tennis player has to read a split second before their opponent. In both cases, reflexes, concentration and a sense of the right moment are crucial," Knežević points out.
For her decades of work, she received recognition from the Government of Montenegro as a meritorious sports worker in 2006. As she says, only one other person in Pljevlja received the same award alongside her. Beco Durutlic for handball and Milenko Bezarevic for football, and was nominated for the award by her coach Nikica Vujadinović from Beran.
Even though her husband Momo passed away two decades ago, and her son and daughter now live in Serbia, Dara hasn't let age slow her down. Quite the opposite.
While many at her age choose peace, she chooses the gym. While others count years, she counts points played.
"Even at this age, I struggle and get annoyed when I lose a point. I taught my children not to do that and not to get annoyed when they lose points, but I do the same," says Dara, whose competitive spirit, even time has failed to defeat.
See more:
Download the app and follow the news
FOLLOW US ON
