The IRF has the great honour to present to you Milan Lovrenčič.
Milan’s first World Rafting Championship was the Camel White Water Challenge in 1997 on the Zambezi, where he was the reserve team member for the Bober (Beaver) team, Slovenia, who have been 6 times World Rafting Champions, a record that will probably never be beaten or even equalled! From 1997 onwards he has attended all WRC’s except 2001 (USA) and 2005 (Ecuador), due to his professional duties.
From 1997 to 2005 he was a technical director of the national team. He was also a judge, but there were no certificates for that then.
Up until now he has been an official Judge at all WRC and all ERC. Every one of them! Costa Rica, Chile, South Africa, Czech Republic, South Korea, New Zealand, Brasil, Bosnia, Italy, Netherlands …
Besides that, he has been a Judge at more than 100 Euro Cup races in Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Turkey, Bulgaria and Slovenia.
He has also been Head Judge at several races.
He was President of the Slovenian Rafting Federation from 1997-1999. He is an establishing member and President of Rafting Club Maribor since its first year, 1992.
He has also been “father and mother” of Slovenian Club Teams (there have been U15 boys, U19 girls, U21 boys, 2-3 Open men’s teams and Open women’s teams.)
After 41 years of “professional duty” as a welder and as a Head of maintenance team in a primary school, he retired in 2010 and now he has three grandsons – 5yr old Svit, 4yr old Tinej and 9mth old Jakob. One more needed for a full R4 team! ;)
This is a biography which many of us dream of. In all of this one can see great effort has been invested, but as soon as you talk with him you know the motive is always there, he simply loves rafting and loves his job as judge. (Thanks to Uroš Lovrenčič, his son, for helping us with this article.)
We all greatly appreciate Milan’s efforts in the development of rafting in Slovenia and the
assistance he has provided to others so selflessly; he honestly evaluates each ones mistakes at the gates, it is always good to get together with him at competitions,
listen to his advice and stories from his rich experience, and toast with him in the glory of friendship, companionship and rafting.
The IRF would like to acknowledge and thank Milan for his years of dedication to the sport and for his happy, friendly face that we all know so well at our rafting events around the world.
Thank you for everything, Čika Milane, Tatko… :)
