Slovenia

Exciting sporting facts

Dressage with Lipizzaners
The world-famous Lipizzaner horses owe their name to the Slovenian town of Lipica, the home of the Lipica Stud Farm founded in 1580. Traditionally, the horsed bred at this farm were trained at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, the only academy in the world still dedicated to the classic equestrian arts. The stallions' highly skilled ballet performance, which includes some of the most spectacular movements and leaps, still fascinates people from all over the world. By the way, Lipizzaners are born dark-coloured and only gradually lighten to their distinctive, brilliant silver-white colour.

The dream of flying
In ski jumping the athletes take off from either a "normal" or a "large" jumping ramp. In 1935 the Slovenian town of Planica, which has a large jumping ramp, hosted the first ski jumping championships. When the Austrian athlete Sepp Bradl became the first person ever to jump beyond 100 metres, he re-defined the sport for good. In 1938 Bradl set a new record of 107 metres and in 1942 the German ski-jumper Rudi Gehring managed 118 metres. However, this was only a tiny leap compared to the distances achieved today! In 2003 Matti Hautamäki from Finland jumped an amazing 231 metres in Planica and set a new world record.

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