CROATIANS COMPETING BEST THEY CAN

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, February 17, 1992                   TAG: 9202170155
SECTION: SPORTS                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ALBERTVILLE, FRANCE                                LENGTH: Medium
CROATIANS COMPETING BEST THEY CAN
Civil war, air raids and frequent electricity outages played havoc on their training.
Still, the first team to represent Croatia in an Olympics is full of smiles and eager to put its mark on these Winter Games.
"It's important to be here for Croatia; it's important for the people of the world to hear we exist," says Tomislav Cizmesija, a figure skater - and a soldier in the Croatian army. "We are partially fighting for the guys back there. I know how they feel."
The fierce fighting between Yugoslav federal forces and the breakaway states of Croatia and Slovenia tore apart a nation and put the four athletes representing Croatia at the Winter Olympics in athletic limbo.
"We had normal summer training. But when we got home, real fighting started," Cizmesija, 23, recalls. "From September to November we had air raids on the streets, six or seven times a day. They cut off electricity, so there was no ice, and we couldn't practice regularly."
He wanted to fight, but was stationed in Zagreb with a company of athletes who have undergone only basic military training. "At first it was hard, but we realized we had to do something to serve democracy in Croatia," says Cizmesija.
Cizmesija skated the men's short program Thursday but finished 29th and didn't make the cut for the long program. "I cannot expect to do well with so little practice," he says with a twinge of resentment.
His sister Zeljka, 21, a medical student, is also a figure skater here and evaluates her chances equally realistically. "We prepared for the Olympics only one month," she says. "We could only practice about once a week for three months."
The bloodshed disrupted training for skier Vedran Pavlek as well. "It's not easy to train when there's war in your country," he says. "I spoke each day with my parents, and they told me bad news, and I couldn't sleep with the bad news."
Pavlek, currently ranked about 350th in the world in the slalom and giant slalom, is less concerned about how he performs than the fact that he's here.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB