Denis Žvegelj (born 24 June 1972) is an ex-

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

rower Rowing, often called crew in the United States, is the sport of racing boats using oars. It differs from paddling sports in that rowing oars (called blades in the United Kingdom) are attached to the boat using rowlocks, while paddles are ...

and Olympic medallist. He was born in

Jesenice Jesenice (, ''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru'', vol. 6: Kranjsko. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 144.) is the tenth-largest town in Slovenia, located in the traditional province of Upper C ...

SR Slovenia The Socialist Republic of Slovenia (, sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Socijalistička Republika Slovenija, Социјалистичка Република Словенија), commonly referred to as Socialist Slovenia or simply Slovenia, was one ...

Rowing career

Žvegelj started rowing at the age of 12 at local rowing club in his hometown

Bled Bled (; ,''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 146. in older sources also ''Feldes'') is a town on Lake Bled in the Upper Carniolan regio ...

. Serious rowing racing started in the coxless pair with

Iztok Čop Iztok Čop (born 17 June 1972) is a Slovenian rower and Olympic gold medalist. Biography Čop was born in Kranj, SR Slovenia, and started rowing at the age of 13 in Bled, where Slovenia's best rowing club is located ...

, when they won two junior world championships (1989, 1990). They finished 2nd in the World Championships in 1991, and won Bronze at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992 with Čop (the first Olympic medal for independent

). In 1993 Žvegelj and Iztok took bronze despite Žvegelj's severe shoulder injury after a bicycle accident. Žvegelj studied at

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

where he rowed and studied

Mechanical Engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

. He was member of Brown's varsity eight, which won

National Collegiate Rowing Championship The now defunct, short-lived National Collegiate Rowing Championship, often simply called the "Cincinnati Regatta," was a championship for men's and women's collegiate rowing, held in Cincinnati, Ohio, between 1982 and 1996. It pitted the winners o ...

in years 1994 and 1995. After return for summer holidays in 1994, he was in a car crash that prevented him from finishing the rowing season Čop. A few months later, another rower, Sašo Mirjanič from Slovenian four, died in car accident. So next year Žvegelj joined three boys to qualify for the 1996 Olympics. They took 4th in a close fours race, where all six boats were even almost from start to finish line. That scenario repeated in WRC in France, when Slovenia was called to pick up bronze medal, and later (after detail photo finish examination) moved to 4th place. Due to back problems, he ended his rowing career.

Olympic Games

*1992:

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

(SPA) – 3rd place (coxless pair with

) *1996:

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

(USA) – 4th place (coxless four with Sadik Mujkić, Milan Janša, Jani Klemenčič)

World Rowing Junior Championships

* 1989:

Szeged Szeged ( , ; see also #Etymology, other alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat ...

(HUN) – 1st place (coxless pair with

) * 1990: Aiguebelette (FRA) – 1st place (coxless pair with

)

World Championships

* 1990: Lake Barrington (AUS) – 7th place (coxless four with Sadik Mujkić, Bojan Prešern,

) * 1991:

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

(AUT) – 2nd place (coxless pair with

) * 1993:

Roudnice Roudnice is a municipality and village in Hradec Králové District in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 800 inhabitants. Etymology The name is derived from the red shades of colour (in Czech ''rudá'') of the water ...

(CZE) – 3rd place (coxless pair with

) * 1995:

Tampere Tampere is a city in Finland and the regional capital of Pirkanmaa. It is located in the Finnish Lakeland. The population of Tampere is approximately , while the metropolitan area has a population of approximately . It is the most populous mu ...

(FIN) – 8th place (coxless four with Sadik Mujkić, Milan Janša, Jani Klemenčič) * 1997: Aiguebelette (FRA) – 4th place (coxless four with Sadik Mujkić, Milan Janša, Jani Klemenčič)

Career

Žvegelj then focused in working with his father in their design firm Basing in

, which moved to

in January 2006. In 1998 he founded an engineering firm Basing. On 16 March 2009 he was elected President of Slovenian Rowing Federation for 2009–2013. From 2012–2014 he was the CEO of Vile Bled. In 2015 he founded Revive Temple Bled. In 2012 he formed a small Hotel chain at the lake Bled Vile Bled and later extended his work to alternative healing to promote bio-energy healing and learning. In 2015 he began running independent healing, revitalizing and learning center Revive Temple Bled to promote healthy life style and self-healing through proper nutrition, use of bio-energy and detoxification.

Personal life

Žvegelj is a father of three sons Gal (17 March 1994), Maksim (25 September 1998) and

Isak Isak may refer to: * Isak (given name) * Isak (surname) See also *Izak (disambiguation) Izak is a given name. Izak may also refer to: * Izak catshark, a type of cat shark * Izak, a character in the video game '' Suikoden IV'' * Piotr "Izak" Sk ...

(3 July 2000) and lives in his hometown of Bled.

References

External links

DatabaseOlympics.com profileNews Dnevnik 17.03.2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zvegelj, Denis 1972 births Living people Slovenian male rowers Olympic rowers for Slovenia Rowers at the 1992 Summer Olympics Rowers at the 1996 Summer Olympics Olympic bronze medalists for Slovenia Olympic medalists in rowing World Rowing Championships medalists for Slovenia Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics World Rowing Championships medalists for Yugoslavia Sportspeople from Jesenice, Jesenice