Denis Žvegelj

Denis Žvegelj (born June 24, 1972 in Jesenice ) is a former Slovenian rower .

In the mid-1980s, Žvegelj began rowing in Bled . He had his first international success in 1989 and 1990 as a junior world champion in two without a helmsman together with Iztok Čop . At the 1990 World Championships , the two made their debut in the adult class and finished in seventh place in the four-man category. In the following year, the two were runner-up in the two without a helmsman behind Steven Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent . Until then, Čop and Žvegelj had competed for Yugoslavia, but from 1992 they started for Slovenia.

At the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona Slovenia took part in the Summer Olympic Games for the first time and won bronze twice, the first Olympic medals for Slovenia. The first bronze medal was won by the two-man without a helmsman with Čop and Žvegelj, the second medal followed shortly after in the four-man without a helmsman. In 1993 Čop and Žvegelj received bronze again at the world championships .

Then Čop switched from oar rowing to scull rowing , Žvegelj switched to the four without a helmsman. In this boat class, he finished eighth at the 1995 World Championships . At the 1996 Olympic Games , the Slovenian foursome reached fourth place with Denis Žvegelj, Janez Klemenčič , Milan Janša and Sadik Mujkič . In the same line-up, the four-man finished fourth at the 1997 World Championships . After that, the active sporting career of Denis Žvegelj ended, who later campaigned for the Slovenian rowing sport in the Slovenian Rowing Association.

Web links

• Denis Žvegelj in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Denis Žvegelj at Worldrowing.com ( FISA database )