Compared to the result of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Macedonia took a step back with the achievements of our athletes at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. And a big step. In Tokyo we won one medal, the silver of taekwondo player Dejan Georgievski, and in Paris we were left without a medal.

We did not use the Olympic cycle between these two Olympic Games to upgrade ourselves, but rather went backwards. That's what the results say.

The Macedonian athletes who performed in Paris are not at all to blame for the fact that the movement of Macedonian Olympic sports between two Olympic Games is in reverse. Each of the six Macedonian representatives in Paris did the best they could, invested most of their potential to achieve the best possible result. Dario Ivanovski ran and was injured just to finish the marathon race, he risked his health in order not to give up and disappoint the Macedonian public.

Taekwondo player Mila Reljic showed that she has the potential to defeat real aces in this sport. Eh, if there were adequate conditions for preparations in the pre-Olympic cycle... A similar conclusion, more or less, can be made for our other athletes.

There was no lack of support for our athletes from the general public. Everyone tried to achieve as much as possible, the public mostly cheered them on, showed solidarity. But the fact remains that there is no progress for Macedonian sport from Tokyo to Paris. On the contrary!

The institutions and bodies in our country, first of all those that are directly involved in sports, but not only them, but many others, as many times before, did not do their job so that Macedonia goes to Paris with more Olympians, with more fulfilled Olympic norms and end up with better results.

As a society, we are not doing nearly enough for sports, for the expansion of the sports base, for the upgrading of the infrastructure, for the preparations and competitions of the elite athletes to expect a systematic constant progress in this area.

Countless times we have seen how organizations directly involved in sports behave like horns in a sack, working against each other, for who knows what purposes, just not for progress in sports, for the benefit of athletes.
Many times we have seen how our politicians wait in line to take a picture with an athlete who made a result, but then very often the athlete is forgotten, left to himself, as he was before.

Things are not done right starting from the foundation and up, and the result when it comes time to do it, is absent. Our best swimmers pay for their own training in pools, our taekwondo players and other athletes are self-financed to survive, their gyms are closed during holidays, our athletes change clothes and train in meadows instead of proper fields...

Absurdities multiply. Our wrestlers are no longer competitive as they were in the good old glory days, so we are looking for foreigners to perform for Macedonia... Where are the new Trstena, Sejdiu, Shorov...? They are certainly not in Russia. We shall reap what we have sown.

We can't even measure up to our neighbors, who usually go ahead. Kosovo, for whom this is the third Games in its history, won two medals in Paris, as well as in Tokyo. Serbia performed with 113 athletes, won five medals, three of which were gold, Albania has two medals, i.e. one more than Tokyo. Croatia with its 73 athletes won seven medals in Paris, Slovenia, with which we want to compare ourselves so much probably because of the number of inhabitants, performed with even 90 athletes, won two golds and one silver...

The Olympic Games are the finale of a four-year cycle called the Olympiad, where the results of the work are shown. If you have not created conditions for your athletes to work as hard as possible in the years leading up to the Games, you will go to them with invitations (so-called wild cards) and with the slogan - it is important to participate. It's not bad either, but the world is moving forward, and we are moving in the opposite direction. If we continue like this, at the Olympic Games and other major competitions we will only have good results incidentally (if we are lucky), and not systemic long-term progress and trophies, as it should be in a normal country.