Slovenia at the Olympics


first participated as an independent nation at the Olympic Games at the 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville, France, and the country has sent athletes to compete at every Games since then. The Slovenian Olympic Committee was established in 1991 and was recognised by the International Olympic Committee on 5 February 1992.
Slovenian athletes first competed at the Olympics in Stockholm, at the 1912 Summer Olympics, as part of the Austrian team. There, Rudolf Cvetko became the first Slovene to win an Olympic medal, a silver in the men's team sabre. Then, until Slovenia's independence, they competed as part of Yugoslavia. Before the Second World War, all of the Olympic medals for the Kingdom of Yugoslavia were won by Slovene gymnasts. Leon Štukelj was the most prominent pre-war athlete, winning three gold, one silver, and two bronze medals, and he is still the most decorated Slovenian Olympian. Among post-war Olympians, Miroslav Cerar won two gold and one bronze medals, also in gymnastics. All of Yugoslavia's Winter Olympic medals were won by Slovenians with the first being the silver medal of Jure Franko in alpine skiing, won at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, when Yugoslavia hosted the Games.
Athletes representing Slovenia have won a total of 23 medals at the Summer Olympic Games and another 17 at the Winter Olympic Games. Slovenia's most successful Summer Olympics as of 2016 have been the 2000 Summer Olympics where they won two gold medals and the 2008 Summer Olympics where they won five medals overall, including one gold. The most successful winter games were the 2014 Winter Olympics, where Slovenian athletes won a record eight medals, including two gold. Tina Maze and Iztok Čop are the most decorated post-independence Slovenian Olympians, with four medals each. The shooter Rajmond Debevec has competed at the Olympics eight times as of 2016. He competed between 1984 and 2012, representing Yugoslavia for his first two appearances. Track and field athlete Merlene Ottey competed at the Olympics seven times between 1980 and 2004. In her first six appearances, she was representing Jamaica, for whom she won nine medals, the seventh time she represented Slovenia. Debevec is the oldest medallist and the oldest Slovenian participant at the Olympics, having won his last medal at the age of 49 in 2012. The youngest participant from Slovenia was Nastja Govejšek, a swimmer, who was 15 at the 2012 games. The youngest Olympic medallist for Slovenia has been alpine skier Alenka Dovžan, who was 18 years old when she competed at the 1994 Winter Olympics.
Slovenian athletes have won medals in seven sports at the Summer and in five sports at the Winter Games. The most successful sport for Slovenia at the Summer Olympics is judo with five medals while the most successful sport at the Winter Olympics is alpine skiing with seven medals. In team sports, the national teams have participated three times in handball and twice in ice hockey. With a population of just above 2 million, Slovenia often finds itself among countries with the highest medal-per-capita rankings.

Medal tables

Medals by Summer Games

Medals by Winter Games

Medals by summer sport

Medals by winter sport

List of medalists

Summer Olympics

MedalNameGamesSportEvent

Denis Žvegelj		 RowingMen's coxless pair

Janez Klemenčič
Sašo Mirjanič
Sadik Mujkić		 RowingMen's coxless four
AthleticsWomen's 100 metre hurdles
CanoeingMen's K-1 slalom

Luka Špik		 RowingMen's double sculls
ShootingMen's 50 metre rifle 3 positions

Luka Špik		 RowingMen's double sculls
AthleticsWomen's 800 metres
JudoWomen's half-middleweight
SailingMen's Laser class
AthleticsMen's hammer throw
SailingMen's laser class
SwimmingWomen's 200 metre freestyle
JudoWomen's half-heavyweight
ShootingMen's 50 m rifle three positions
JudoWomen's half-middleweight
AthleticsMen's hammer throw

Luka Špik		 RowingMen's double sculls
ShootingMen's 50 m rifle prone
JudoWomen's half-middleweight
CanoeingMen's slalom K-1
SailingMen's Finn
JudoWomen's half-heavyweight

Winter Olympics

MedalNameGamesSportEvent
Alpine skiingWomen's combined
Alpine skiingMen's slalom
Alpine skiingWomen's slalom

Robert Kranjec
Primož Peterka
Peter Žonta		 Ski jumpingMen's team
Alpine skiingWomen's super-G
Alpine skiingWomen's giant slalom
Cross-country skiingWomen's sprint
Alpine skiingWomen's downhill
Alpine skiingWomen's giant slalom
Ski jumpingMen's normal hill individual
SnowboardingMen's parallel slalom
Cross-country skiingWomen's sprint
BiathlonWomen's pursuit
Ski jumpingMen's large hill individual
SnowboardingMen's parallel giant slalom
BiathlonMen's individual
SnowboardingMen's parallel giant slalom

Multiple medal winners

AthleteSexSportYearsGamesGoldSilverBronzeTotal
F2002–2014Winter2204
M1992–2012Summer1124
M2000–2012Summer1113
M2000–2012Summer1102
M1984–2012Summer1023
F2004–2012Summer1012
M2000–2016Summer0213
M2010–2018Winter0123
M2010–2018Winter0112

This list only contains Olympic medal winners for Slovenia as an independent country. Two medalists for Slovenia also won medals competing under different flags, Sadik Mujkić won a bronze at the 1988 Summer Olympics for Yugoslavia, and Jakov Fak won a bronze at the 2010 Winter Olympics for Croatia.

List of pre-independence Slovenian medalists

This list contains Olympic medals won by Slovenian athletes before Slovenia started to participate as an independent country in 1992. The list includes both athletes who won individual medals and athletes who won medals as part of the team. Rudolf Cvetko won a medal as a member of Austrian team. All other athletes won medals for Yugoslavia, which corresponded to Kingdom of Yugoslavia for the Games from 1920 to 1936 and Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1948 to 1988. Stojna Vangelovska, a Macedonian basketball player who won silver with women's team at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, and Vinko Jelovac, a basketball player born in Croatia who won silver with men's team at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, are sometimes included to lists of Slovenian medalists. Both spent important parts of their careers playing for Slovenian clubs. Vangelovska played at Ljubljana's ŽKD Ježica and Jelovac at Ljubljana's KK Olimpija. Jelovac was also twice chosen as Slovenian Sportsman of the Year in the 1970s. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, handball player Iztok Puc first played for the Croatian men's team, winning gold at the 1996 Summer Olympics, and later for Slovenian national team, thus becoming the only handball player to have represented three different teams at the Olympics.

Summer Olympics

MedalNameGamesSportEvent
FencingMen's team sabre
GymnasticsMen's individual all-around
GymnasticsMen's horizontal bar
GymnasticsMen's rings
GymnasticsMen's parallel bars
GymnasticsMen's individual all-around
GymnasticsMen's vault

Stane Derganc
Boris Gregorka
Anton Malej
Janez Porenta
Josip Primožič
Leon Štukelj		 GymnasticsMen's team
GymnasticsMen's rings
GymnasticsMen's pommel horse
GymnasticsMen's horizontal bar
GymnasticsMen's pommel horse

Aljoša Žorga		 BasketballMen's team
HandballWomen's team
HandballMen's team

Marko Elsner		 FootballMen's team
BasketballWomen's team
BasketballMen's team

Bojan Prešern		 RowingMen's coxlees pair

Rolando Pušnik		 HandballMen's team

Winter Olympics