Aleksandar Šapić

Aleksandar Šapić
Aleksandar Šapić
Personal information
Surname:	Aleksandar Šapić
Nation:	Serbia
Birthday:	June 1, 1978
Place of birth:	Belgrade
Medal table

Aleksandar Šapić ( Serbian - Cyrillic Александар Шапић ; born June 1, 1978 in Belgrade ) is a Serbian politician and former water polo player .

Career as an athlete

At the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney , Šapić won a bronze medal with the Serbia-Montenegro national team , and a silver medal at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens , where he was also the top scorer. The gold medal won Šapić with this team at the 2005 World Cup in Montreal and at the 2005 World League in Belgrade . On September 10, 2006 he won the European Championship in Belgrade with the Serbian national team , the first title under the new name. At the 2008 Olympic Games , he again won the bronze medal. He ended his national team career in 2009 after 385 games and 981 goals.

Šapić played after his departure from VK Becej in 2001 in the strong Italian league for RN Camogli and RN Savona and won the LEN Trophy with Savona in 2005 . In 2006 he moved to the Russian league to Shturm 2002 Chekhov . There he received a three-year contract that earned him $ 300,000 annually, making him the best-paid water polo player at the time.

Teams

team	No.	from ... to
Shturm 2002 Chekhov	10	2006-2009
RN Savona	10	2004-2006
RN Camogli	10	2001-2004
VK Becej		-2001

Career as a politician

Šapić switched to politics after the end of his sports career in May 2009. In the summer of 2006, he joined the social democratic Demokratska Stranka (DS) ( German  Democratic Party ), which was in the opposition at the national level, but had government responsibility at the local level in Belgrade. Šapić initially worked as a personal assistant for the Belgrade Mayor Dragan Đilas , who was chairman of the DS at national level from 2012 to 2014, and was elected party chairman of the DS in Belgrade in 2011 and head of the most populous Belgrade district of Novi Beograd in 2012. After Đilas' withdrawal in 2014, Šapić continued his career, but, like his mentor, left the DS and is non-party (as of 2016). He won the local election in April 2016 with 35 percent of the vote and was then re-elected for a second term as community leader.

A number of scandals broke out. For example, he had to resign as General Secretary of DS in December 2013 after sending a tweet about the Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz that was regarded as tasteless . In July 2014, he came under fire when his doctoral thesis was accused of plagiarism in connection with similar allegations against politicians of the competing conservative Serbian Progressive Party . He received his doctorate in 2012 from the Faculty of Business and Management of the private University Union with a thesis on marketing . Šapić has also been criticized for putting his parents on his electoral list in 2016. Nevertheless, he is considered one of the most popular politicians in Serbia.

Web links

Commons : Aleksandar Šapić  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• RS: Šapić završio karijeru. In: Politika.rs , May 9, 2009 (Serbian).
• Natalia Zaba: “It's the Little Things That Count”: As president of the New Belgrade municipality, Serbia's legendary athlete-turned politician Aleksandar Sapic has shifted his focus to neighborhood affairs. In: Balkan Insight , June 7, 2016 (English).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ RS: Šapić završio karijeru. In: Politika.rs , May 9, 2009.
2. ↑ Đilas decides to run again for Belgrade mayor. In: B92.net , July 4, 2011 (English).
3. ↑ Šapić predsednik Opštine N. Beograd. In: B92.net , June 28, 2012 (Serbian).
4. ^ Former DS leader Dragan Djilas leaves party. In: B92.net , July 1, 2016 (English).
5. ↑ ^{a b c} Natalia Zaba: "It's the Little Things That Count": As president of the New Belgrade municipality, Serbia's legendary athlete-turned politician Aleksandar Sapic has shifted his focus to neighborhood affairs. In: Balkan Insight , June 7, 2016 (English).
6. ↑ Serbia: politician resigned after a tweet briefly. In: Die Presse , December 24, 2013 ( APA report).
7. ↑ Jack Grove: Serbian political figures accused of plagiarizing their PhDs. Allegations have further shaken public trust in the country's governing class. In: Times Higher Education , July 24, 2014.
8. ↑ Uglješa Grušić, Marko Milanović, Branislav Radeljić, Slobodan Tomić: The Shameless Plagiarism of Aleksandar Šapić. In: Balkanist.net , July 5, 2014 (English).