2019 BELGRADE TROPHY
- Belgrade, Serbia
- Saturday, June 22nd – Sunday, June 23rd
- Results
Multi-gold medalist at last year’s Mediterranean Games, Velimir Stjepanovic, was in the water this weekend, competing at the 2019 Belgrade Trophy. The 25-year-old Serb collected 2 medals over the course of the 2-day competition, first in the 200m free with a time of 1:49.35 and then in the 200m fly in 1:59.02.
The 25-year-old owns personal bests of 1:45.78 and 1:54.99 in the aforementioned events, respectively. Stjepanovic’s quickest 200m free mark of 2019 is the 1:48.52 established back in April, while he notched a time of 1:58.53 in the 2fly one month earlier.
A national record went down at the competition as well, courtesy of Adnan Beji. Entering the Belgrade Trophy with a personal best of 2:16.26 already from March of this year, the man managed to venture into new territory with a quick 2:15.11 to hack more than a second off that mark.
Of note, Beji has represented Tunisia in the past, including the 2017 World Junior Championships. As he is listed on the official results as having broken a Serbian National Record, we have reached out to the Serbian Swimming Federation to confirm Beji has indeed changed his sporting citizenship.
Update: The Serbian Swimming Federation’s Managing Director confirmed to SwimSwam that, “Beji Adnan has a duel citizenship, since his mother is Serbian and he is registered for Serbian Club Vojvodina as Serbian citizen, but his sports nationality is Tunisian and at major international competitions he represents Tunisia.”
His mother is Serbian, his father is Tunisian. He started training with Serbian top breastrokers in Novi Sad last summer. He has dual citizenship, but I think he will continue to represent Tunisia. Since he has Serbian citizenship as well, he has a right to break the national record.