From Belgrade to Delco, Jovana Sekulic took an improbable path to the U.S. Olympic water polo team

Ten years after immigrating to the United States from Serbia, Jovana Sekulic is representing the U.S. at the Olympic Games.

“It never even crossed my mind that this would be a possibility,” said Sekulic, a rising junior at Princeton who is one of 13 players on the United States women’s water polo team for the Paris Olympics.

Sekulic, 21, has had to clear hurdle after hurdle on her way to becoming an Olympian.

For starters, she grew up playing water polo in Belgrade, Serbia, where, despite the popularity of the sport in Eastern Europe, there weren’t many opportunities for women to succeed. The Serbian men’s national team has won a gold medal at the last two Olympic Games, but the women’s team has yet to make an Olympic appearance.

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“I always kind of thought in the back of my mind, ‘I’m never going to be able to even make it top five with this team; we’re never going to be that good,’” Sekulic told The Inquirer. “That made me really sad, but it was a reality.”

After Jovana’s father, Goran, acquired a green card and moved the Sekulic family to the U.S. in 2014, her water polo career took another hit. Her parents cared more for academics than sports. Jovana says the move “had nothing to do with water polo.”

“We truly believed in the American dream and the promised land,” said Sladjana Sekulic, Jovana’s mother. “… When we arrived in the USA, we did not consider the USA Olympic team or high sports achievements.”

They spent a month in Brooklyn before moving to Media, where Jovana enrolled at Springton Lake Middle School for sixth grade. The school didn’t even have a pool, and there was no water polo in the entire district. The sport generally isn’t prevalent on the East Coast, as a majority of high school players in the U.S. live in California.

But Sladjana wanted Jovana and her two brothers, Matej and Luka (both Haverford School graduates), to stay active while adjusting to American life. She did some digging and found Maverick Water Polo, a club on the Main Line that opened two months after the Sekulic family moved into town.

Jovana played for the club for several years before enrolling at Episcopal Academy in eighth grade, when her water polo career initially took off. She starred for the Churchmen, winning the Eastern Prep Championship three times and the tournament’s MVP award twice. That success propelled her to Princeton, where she scored 74 goals in her freshman season in 2022 and earned rookie of the year honors from the Collegiate Water Polo Association.

Although a standout freshman campaign landed her an invite to try out for the U.S. women’s national team, Sekulic didn’t think she had a chance. She flew to Long Beach, Calif., prepared to come home within days, after the first round of cuts were made.

“I brought two pairs of shorts [and] two shirts because I was just going for the weekend, and so I basically had a backpack,” Sekulic said.

Then she made the first cut, which granted her a spot in a 40-player national team camp the following weekend.

“I was like, ‘Oh man, I don’t have anywhere to live, I don’t have clothes, but yes,’” Sekulic recalls thinking.

The camp featured the best players in the country, including past Olympians and world champions. Sekulic once again believed she was going home, but she was wrong for a second time. She made the B team and was asked to stay in Long Beach to begin training.

As Sekulic traveled the world playing water polo, getting more reps against elite players, and learning from nationally renowned coaches, she realized how much of the sport had evaded her while she was in Belgrade and on the East Coast.

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“I felt like I was a sponge soaking up so much information, all of this new stuff,” Sekulic said. “It was a whole new water polo world. … It was like I was blind for all this time, and now I’m finally seeing.”

Sekulic went back to Princeton for her sophomore season and won Collegiate Water Polo Association player of the year. At that point, U.S. coach Adam Krikorian had seen enough — he asked Sekulic if she would redshirt for the 2023-24 academic year to train for the Olympics. Of course, she said yes.

In Sekulic’s words: “All I have to do is eat, sleep, and do water polo.”

With the rigors of an Ivy League education temporarily out of the picture, Sekulic continued building momentum in the pool. She scored four goals at the World Aquatics World Championships in February, and, three months later, she secured a spot on Team USA for the Paris Olympics.

“I never really expected myself to go and play at this level,” Sekulic said. “I never had a big Olympic dream.”

Added Sladjana: “Jovana becoming an Olympian on our 10th anniversary of living in the USA fills us as a family with immense pride and joy.”

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Sekulic isn’t done clearing hurdles.

She’s the only player on the U.S. roster born outside of the country, and one of only two players born outside California, along with Princeton alumna Ashleigh Johnson. The Belgrade native is swimming, eating, and living with a group of people who were familiar with one another long before she entered the fold. That has made it tough on her socially, but this isn’t the first time Sekulic has been an outsider.

“Considering that she went through, an enormous life change and challenge of coming to the USA at 12, this was still a more straightforward process that had less impact on her daily life,” Sladjana said.

Jovana agrees.

“I was comfortable being uncomfortable,” she said, “and, if anything, it made me stronger and it made me grow more.”

Sekulic notes how much maturity the team has shown in putting aside social differences and focusing solely on its performance in the pool. That professionalism shouldn’t come as a surprise — the U.S. has won the last three Olympic gold medals, putting together a 17-1-1 record in the Olympics since 2012.

The success of past U.S. outfits undoubtedly puts pressure on the current squad. Team USA is 1-1 in group play after Monday’s loss to Spain. Sekulic, who has scored three goals thus far, believes the Americans have as much to prove as anyone.

“This team we have right now, it’s not the same team from then, and it’ll never be the same in the future,” Sekulic said. “These 13 players have never won an Olympic gold medal, or any medal, or gone to the Olympics together. For this team, [we’re] just trying to be our best — whatever that looks like.”