Mirna Jukić (born 9 April 1986) is a retired Austrian swimmer who won a bronze medal in both short course and long course at the world championships in swimming. She is trained by her father Željko Jukić, a former

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player. She has had numerous European and World championship successes.

Family

Jukić was born in

Novi Sad Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; hu, Újvidék, ; german: Neusatz; see below for other names) is the second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the Pan ...

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

and grew up in

Vukovar Vukovar () ( sr-Cyrl, Вуковар, hu, Vukovár, german: Wukowar) is a city in Croatia, in the eastern region of Slavonia. It contains Croatia's largest river port, located at the confluence of the Vuka and the Danube. Vukovar is the seat of ...

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

. In November 1991, the family moved to

Zagreb Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital and largest city of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb stands near the international border between Croatia and Slov ...

, and her father started training her at Mladost in 1996. Her brother, Dinko Jukić, with whom she was trained early on, also became an international-level swimmer. In the autumn of 1999, the family moved to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, Austria, and the same year Mirna became an Austrian citizen. Her brother became an Austrian citizen in 2000, while the parents remained Croatian citizens.

Olympic career

At the 2008 Olympics Jukić garnered a bronze medal in the 100 m breaststroke (1:07.34); she also swam the 200 m breaststroke. At the

2009 World Aquatics Championships The 2009 World Aquatics Championships ( it, Campionati mondiali di nuoto 2009) or the XIII FINA World Championships were held in Rome, Italy from 18 July to 2 August 2009. The 2009 Championships featured competition in all 5 aquatics disciplines ...

she won the bronze medal in the 200 m breaststroke final with a time of 2:21.97.

Training

For the 2004 and 2008 Olympics, Jukić trained at

The Race Club The Race Club is a swimming club known for training Olympic Games swimmers with its swimming training program that is focused on specific swimming techniques, located in Islamorada, Florida. History The Race Club was founded in 2003 by Gary Ha ...

, a swimming club founded by Olympic swimmers

Gary Hall, Jr. Gary Wayne Hall Jr. (born September 26, 1974) is an American former competition swimmer who represented the United States at the 1996, 2000, and 2004 Olympics and won ten Olympic medals (five gold, three silver, two bronze). He is a former wor ...

and his father, Gary Hall, Sr. The Race Club, originally known as "The World Team," was designed to serve as a training group for elite swimmers across the world in preparation for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. To be able to train with the Race Club, one must either have been ranked in the top 20 in the world the past 3 calendar years or top 3 in their nation in the past year. The Race Club included such well known swimmers as

Roland Mark Schoeman Roland Mark Schoeman OIS (born 4 July 1980) is a South African American swimmer and was a member of the South African swimming team at the 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. In May 2022, he officially became United States citizen. Ca ...

, Mark Foster,

Ryk Neethling Ryk Neethling Order of Ikhamanga, OIS (born 17 November 1977) is a South African businessman who rose to prominence as the three-times World Champion and four-times World Record Breaking Swimming at the Summer Olympics, Olympic swimming champion ...

, Ricardo Busquets and

Therese Alshammar Malin Therese Alshammar (born 26 August 1977) is a Swedish swimmer who has won three Olympic medals, 25 World Championship medals, and 43 European Championship medals. She is a specialist in short distances races in freestyle and butterfly. She ...

Broadcasting

In January 2010, Mirna Jukić was the host of the Croatian team in Graz for the

2010 European Men's Handball Championship The 2010 EHF European Men's Handball Championship (9th tournament) was held in Austria from 19 to 31 January, in the cities of Vienna, Graz, Innsbruck, Linz and Wiener Neustadt. Venues 5 Austrian cities have been selected to host the 2010 Cham ...

References

External links