SINKOVIC Valent

General
DISCIPLINE CHANGE
After 2016 Olympic Games he and his brother Martin decided to switch from double sculls to the pair. "We are happy and excited about this decision, we consider it as a new challenge. It is a discipline in which there is very strong competition. We are starting again from the beginning. We know the basics, but there is a lot of hard work and training ahead of us. We are proud of all our successes, but we have decided to change to have new motivation and new challenges, but also to make our fans and the whole of Croatia proud of us again." (net.hr, 16 Nov 2016; story.hr, 27 Oct 2019)

HISTORIC ROW
In the semifinal of the 2014 World Championships in Amsterdam, Netherlands, he and his younger brother Martin became the first double sculls crew to break the six-minute mark, finishing in a time of 5:59.720. "We weren't thinking about the [world] record that much before the competition. Only before the semifinal did we see the course was fast and we could set a new record, but it never crossed our minds that we could go below six minutes. When we saw the monitor it was an amazing moment, we couldn't believe it. It is a feeling that cannot be put in words." (Sportnedjeljom emisija, 12 Oct 2014; hrsport.net, 30 Aug 2014)

FAMILY AFFAIR
He believes he has an advantage in having his younger brother Martin as his teammate. "Being brothers makes it very easy to understand each other in and out of the boat. We know exactly what the other one is thinking and there are no misunderstandings. We also know that both of us will always give our absolute best for the other. Martin's strength is his physical endurance and always being relaxed. My strength is I have a good sense of the boat and I can get the best out of us. I'm a perfectionist in the boat which can sometimes be a weakness because I get nervous if everything isn't perfect. My brother always makes fun of me that I'm as sensitive as a flower and prone to injuries." (worldrowing.com, 12 Jul 2015; sport.hrt.hr, 14 May 2015; dnevnik.hr, 14 May 2015; ezadar.hr, 21 Dec 2014)

The gold medal he and his brother Martin won in the double sculls at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro was Croatia's first Olympic gold medal in rowing. (SportsDeskOnline, 01 May 2020)

In 2014 he and his brother Martin became the first Croatian rowers to win more than two total world championship gold medals, when they won their third world title. They went on to be the first Croatian rowers to win four [2015], five [2018] and six [2019] total world championship gold medals. (SportsDeskOnline, 01 May 2020)