Biography

Natasha Meshkovska

Natasha Meshkovska was born in Skopje in 1972. When she was 7 she started trainings in swimming, at 14 years she becomes a champion of Yugoslavia and State record holder in the discipline 100 and 200m butterfly. In that period she lives and trains with the national team in Split, Belgrade and Rijeka. She is the first Macedonian in the Yugoslavian swimming team, and thus begins to write the Macedonian history.

Natasha participates at 6 World Championships, with ranking in the top 16, wins a silver and a bronze medal at the World Cup and is participates in 4 Olympic games, two as an athlete, and two as Leader of the mission. In the period from 1992 to 1996 she gets a sports scholarship from the International Olympic Committee and travels to the United States, Florida, where she lives and trains until the end of her sports career. Her greatest success was achieved at the World Championships in Rio (Brazil) in 1995, when she won the 10th place in 200 meters butterfly. In 1994 Natasha decides to swim for the first time for the Ohrid marathon, and succeeds in doing so, finishing fourth. Her sports career ends with the performance at the Olympic Games in Atlanta 1996, and then she continues to work on her academic and training career.

In 2003 she successfully defends her PhD dissertation and thus became the youngest Doctor of Science at the Faculty of Physical Culture, where she now works as a professor in the Department for swimming with water polo. In 2004 she became a Vice-President of the Macedonian Olympic Committee; meanwhile she formed her own swimming school for young children, beginners, with more than 100 members. She achieved great success as coach of the swimmer Vesna Stojanovska which won a silver medal at the European Championships in Malta. Today, Natasha is also working as therapeutic swimming instructor with children who have disabilities and various dysfunctions.