Milivoj Dukić is the best athlete of Montenegro for 2024 as chosen by the Montenegrin Olympic Committee - his 14th place at the Olympic Games in Paris earned him the award ahead of the other 10 proposed candidates.
The Board of Directors of COK decided, and everything provoked the reaction of the Boxing Association of Montenegro, which believes that their candidate Tomisalv Đinović deserved this prestigious award with the bronze medal from the European Championship.
On this occasion, BSCG president Aleksandar Klemenko wrote to the first man of COK, Dušan Simonović.
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We transmit his letter in its entirety...
"We found out that you declared Milivoj Dukić the best athlete of Montenegro in 2024. Milivoj Dukić is an outstanding athlete who has been competitive at the world level in his sport for a long time, and his candidacy certainly deserves a special recognition from the COK, the Ministry of Sports and Youth and possibly other state authorities.
But based on the Rulebook on the criteria and method of selecting the athlete of the year (Number: 02-235/2 of 02.12.2024 issued by the COK), the result he achieved in 2024 cannot possibly match the result of Tomislav Đinović, the only Montenegrin athlete who won a medal at the European Championship in Olympic sports this year.
Tomislav Đinović is the only Montenegrin athlete who in 2024, based on his results in accordance with the Law on Sports, acquired the status of an athlete with a top representative result and received a decision on lifetime monthly compensation for the achieved sports result.
Milivoj Dukić participated in the fourth Olympic Games and was never named the best athlete of the year by you. In those years, you gave priority to other athletes in terms of results, which were absolutely similar or even less significant than the results of Tomislav Đinović.
We all have to honestly admit that the performance of all participants of the Montenegrin team at the last Olympic Games, including Milivoj Dukić and the BSCG representative, was unsatisfactory. Finishing 14th at the Olympics may be a great achievement for a certain athlete and his coach, but this is, of course, another failure of the COC. And the attempt to hide this failure by awarding the title of 'Best Athlete of the Year' is another desecration of the work of the COK.
The Boxing Association of Montenegro does not agree with the decision and expresses a categorical protest on this issue.
It is outrageous that this kind of injustice, at least in your execution, repeated year after year, has become part of an unhealthy tradition that reflects very negatively on the image of COK, and also grossly violates the rights of Montenegrin athletes, coaches and national associations.
With the desire for changes for the better," reads the letter signed by Klemenko.
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