16 Sep 2026
50 Years Later, Four Friends Return to the Lake Where It All Began
Fifty years after they first raced together for Yugoslavia, four former teammates found themselves back in the same boat — and back on the same lake where their rowing journey began.
Ozren Tošić, Milan Stojanović, Nebojša Janjić and Milan Mišljenović first met as 14-year-olds at Red Star Rowing Club in Belgrade. Two years later, they had earned places on the Yugoslav junior national team and were beginning to make their mark on the international rowing scene.
Half a century on, the four friends reunited at the 2026 World Rowing Masters Regatta in Bled.
The reunion did not happen by accident. It took a last-minute phone call, months of training, a borrowed boat from a rowing club in Munich — and, above all, a friendship that had lasted long after their competitive careers had ended.
Bled held a particular significance for the group. It was a place connected to their early rowing years, and returning together gave them the chance to race as a crew once again, five decades after they had first shared a boat.
Their story stretches from their first World Championships to a Masters Regatta reunion that brought them back together on the water.
For Tošić, Stojanović, Janjić and Mišljenović, racing together again in Bled was a chance to pick up where they had left off 50 years ago — this time as Masters, but still as four friends in the same boat.