The Sports Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina organised election of the most successful athletes and sports teams for 2019 in Sarajevo on January 23rd 2020. On that occasion, the employee of the University of Bihać, assistant professor Dr. Natalija Kurtović was awarded with a special prize for her contribution, popularisation and development of Bosnia-Herzegovina sports. It is important to note that Assistant Professor Kurtović is a long-term sports worker, head of the Department of Physical Education and Sports at the Faculty of Pedagogy and a member of the Management Board of the Sports Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Natalija Kurtović was born in 1973 in Bad Marienberg (Germany). She finished primary and secondary school in Bihać. She studied at the Pedagogical Academy in Bihać and continued her education at the Faculty of Teacher Education, Department of Sport and Health in Mostar where she graduated in 2008. In the same year, she started working at the Faculty of Education when she was elected as assistant.

She defended her master's thesis entitled “Analysis of the effects of different aerobics programs in the process of transformation of some anthropological characteristics in students of the University of Bihać” at the Faculty of Pedagogy in 2012 and earned a master's degree in Educational Sciences, Kinesiology. After, she was elected as a senior assistant on July 12th 2013 in Bihać. She defended her doctoral dissertation in 2017 at the Faculty of Teacher Education of the University “Džemal Bijedić” in Mostar in the field of sports entitled “Prevalence of spinal deformities and connections with morphological characteristics in students aged 11 and 12” and earned her a doctorate in sports. She has published several scientific papers in the country and the region and she is a certified aerobics instructor and president of the Viktorija Aerobics Club. She has been leading group trainings in the Luka sports hall in Bihac for 20 years and several hundred participants have passed through the club. She has been a member of the jury for the selection of athletes from Bosnia and Herzegovina for several years, participant in international conventions, a member of the Sports for All Committee of the Sports Association of Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a presenter at sports recreation festivals Sports for All. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the existence and work of the aerobics club Viktorija from Bihać, whose founder and coach is assistant professor Kurtović.