On this day, 37 years ago the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo hosted the 14th Winter Olympics, which inspired a young man to train ski jumps and eventually become Bosnian record holder in this discipline. Pročitaj više

Selver Merdanovic was just a young boy when he saw world renown ski athletes performing at the ski jumping venue near his home city. It left a strong impression on him.

“They say there were some 100,000 spectators here and, as a kid, I could see nothing. So I climbed on one of these pine trees. The view was magnificent,” said Merdanovic, speaking at the Igman Olympic Jumps, the venue locally known as Malo Polje (small field).

“It was fully crowded, that thunderous applause and the cheering,” he said recalling of the performances that impressed him the most, the one by Matti Nykanen and Jens Weisslog.

Merdanovic fell in love with ski jumping and started with the training soon afterwards.

“I was training ski jumping thanks only to the 1984 Olympic Games. People formed a ski jumping club in Hadzici (near Sarajevo) that we joined as kids and stayed there until the war, training on Igman Mountain, in Slovenia and elsewhere in Europe,” he said.

Three years after the Sarajevo Olympics, Merdanovic competed in Zakopane, Poland, where he set Bosnian national record in ski jumping, which remains even today.

“It was in 1987 during a European cup in Zakopane, where I managed to jump 128.5 metres,” he recalled. “The feeling was magnificent.”

He used to run an association gathering fans of this sports and for a while he was training kids but he had to put it on hold.

“The association is still active but due to our political situation and political will we had to stop with work,” he explained.

The Olympic sports venues were ruined in the 1990's war and to this day have never been recovered.