Lake Bled, Slovenia. Photo: Frank Bienewald/LightRocket via Getty Images
Slovenia is having a sports summer to remember, with four star athletes putting the tiny Central European country in the spotlight.
- Luka Dončić, the Mavericks' 21-year-old superstar, just became the third-youngest player in history to earn All-NBA first team honors — and had the season ended on time, he would have been the youngest.
- Goran Dragić is quietly leading the Heat in scoring this postseason (22.2 ppg) and runs the offense for a team that is two wins away from the NBA Finals.
- Primož Roglič and Tadej Pogačar currently hold the top two spots in the Tour de France. Roglič, 30, is the first Slovenian to wear the yellow jersey and Pogačar is a 21-year-old phenom.
Geography lesson: Slovenia is roughly the size of Massachusetts and has a population of just over two million, putting it on par with New Mexico.
- One of the successor states of the former Yugoslavia, it is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast and the Adriatic Sea to the southwest.
P.S. ... Once international travel is a thing again, I highly recommend a trip to Slovenia. I visited the capital city of Ljubljana — and made a trip to nearby Lake Bled (pictured above) — with my family a few years ago, and absolutely loved it.