Sreten Damjanović

Sreten Damjanović (born October 10, 1946 in Belgrade ) is a former Yugoslav wrestler , European champion in 1969 and world champion in 1971 in Greco-Roman. Lightweight style.

Career

Like many top Yugoslav wrestlers of those years, Sreten Damjanović comes from Vojvodina . He started wrestling there when he was 12 and started for the RK "Spartak" Subotica wrestling club . After the first major successes, he was delegated to the “Vojvodina” Novi Sad sports club . Damjanović grew there to an excellent wrestler in Greco-Roman. Style. In 1967 he made his first international appearance at the Mediterranean Games in Tunis , where he finished second behind the Turk Hizir Alakoc in featherweight.

In 1967 his first start at a European championship took place. In Bucharest , however, starting again in featherweight, he still had to pay hardship and only came in 12th place. At the European Championships in Västerås in 1968, he did significantly better with a 5th place in the featherweight division. At the Olympic Games of the same year in Mexico City Damjanović only managed one victory, so that he had to be content with 12th place.

From 1969, however, there were very successful years for Damjanović. He started now in the lightweight, did not have to train so much and could therefore keep up with his competitors in terms of strength. This was already evident at the 1969 European Championship in Modena , where he won an international title for the first time. At the European Championships in Berlin in 1970 he was also very successful, because he became vice European champion. He managed a remarkable victory over the Romanian world champion Simion Popescu . He also wrestled against Klaus-Peter Göpfert from the GDR and Yuri Kosin from the USSR .

In 1971 Damjanović then achieved the greatest success of his career at the World Cup in Sofia . He became world champion in the lightweight. He again defeated Simion Popescu and also the Soviet world and Olympic champion Roman Rurua . At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich , Damjanović was denied a major success. He initially won two fights, but then fought against the German champion Manfred Schöndorfer only in a draw and lost to the Japanese Tanoue Takashi, which meant his early retirement.

Damjanović was very successful again in 1973. First he finished 3rd at the European Championships in Helsinki and then he was runner-up in the lightweight world champion in Tehran behind the Soviet athlete Schamil Chisamutdinow .

In the next four years, apart from his victory at the Mediterranean Games in 1975, he had no more major international successes.

Sreten Damjanović ended his international wrestling career in 1976 and then worked as a coach in Subotica.

International success

OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, EM = European Championship, GR = Greco-Roman. Style, Fe = featherweight, then up to 63 kg body weight, Le = lightweight, then up to 68 kg body weight

• 1967, 2nd place , Mediterranean Games in Tunis , GR, Fe, behind Hizir Alakoc , Turkey a . off Lazaridis, Greece ;
• 1967, 12th place , World Cup in Bucharest , GR, Fe, after a draw against Czeslaw Korzeń, Poland a . Fritz Schrader , FRG a . a loss to Metin Alakoc;
• 1968, 5th place , EM in Västerås , GR, Fe, with victories over Jacky Bressoud, France , Leif Freij , Sweden a . Gustav Berger, Austria, a tie against Martti Laakso , Finland a . a loss to Yuri Grigoryev , USSR ;
• 1968, 12th place , OS in Mexico City , GR, Fe, with a victory over József Ruznyak, Hungary , a draw against Kim Il-Jong, South Korea and the like. a loss to Roman Rurua , USSR;
• 1969, 1st place , EM in Modena , GR, Le, with victories over Frank Solberg, Norway , Piero Bellotti, Italy a . Kauno Määtta, Finlandu, draw against Vahap Pehlivan, Turkey a. Matti Poikkala , Sweden;
• 1969, 2nd place , World Championship in Mar del Plata , GR, Le, with victories over Kazem Gholani, Iran a. Kauno Määtta, Finland a. Draw against Simion Popescu , Romania, Klaus Rost , FRG a. Yuri Grigoryev , USSR;
• 1970, 2nd place , EM in Berlin , GR, Le, with victories over Matti Poikkala, Miroslav Dolgowics, Poland a. Simion Popescu et al. Draw against Klaus-Peter Göpfert , GDR a . Yuri Kosin , USSR;
• 1970, 4th place , World Championships in Edmonton , GR, Le, m. Wins over Abdul Tahim Ali Tannehill, USA a . Matti Poikkala and draw against Stefan Krastew, Bulgaria a. Tanoue Takashi, Japan ;
• 1971, 1st place , Mediterranean Games in Izmir , GR, Le, ahead of Seyit Hisirli, Turkey a. Nikolaos Kourams, Greece;
• 1971, 1st place , World Championships in Sofia , GR, Le, with victories over days Weirum, Denmark , Weisbaum, SI, Simion Popescu, Roman Rurua u. Tanoue Takashi et al. Draw against Stojan Apostolow , Bulgaria a. Klaus-Peter Göpfert;
• 1972, 3rd place , tournament in Minsk , GR, Le, behind Stojan Apostolow u. Umerow, USSR;
• 1972, 8th place , OS in Munich , GR, Le, with victories over Mohamed Bahamou, Morocco a . Antal Speer , Hungary, a tie against Manfred Schöndorfer , BRD u. a loss to Tanoue Takashi;
• 1973, 3rd place , EM in Helsinki , GR, Le, with victories over Antal Steer, Eugen Hupcă , Romania, Manfred Schöndorfer and Andrzej Supron , Poland, a draw against Jacques Van Lancker, Belgium and defeats against Schamil Chisamutdinow , USSR a. Nedko Nedew , Bulgaria;
• 1973, 2nd place , World Cup in Tehran , GR, Le, with victories over Kader Riad, Lebanon , Jacques Van Lancker and others. Manfred Schöndorfer, draw against Heinz-Helmut Wehling , GDR a. Nedko Nedew et al. a loss to Shamil Chisamutdinov;
• 1974, 11th place , EM in Madrid , GR, Le, after defeats against Binjo Tschifudow , Bulgaria a. Jorma Talvitie, Finland;
• 1974, unpl. , WM in Katowice , GR, Le, abandoned due to injury after a victory over Ioannis Mavraganis, Greece a. a loss to Andrzej Supron;
• 1975, 1st place , Mediterranean Games in Algiers , GR, Le, before Mustapha El-Fikri, Egypt a . Erol Mutlu , Turkey;
• 1975, unpl. , World Championship in Minsk , GR, Le, retired due to injury in the first fight against Andrzej Supron;
• 1976, 11th place , EM in Leningrad , GR, Le, with a victory over Hans Brötzner, Austria a. Defeats against Heinz-Helmut Wehling u. Ștefan Rusu , Romania

swell

• 1) Div. Issues of the specialist magazines "Athletik" from 1967 to 1975 and "Der Ringer" from 1976,
• 2) Documentation of International Wrestling Championships of the FILA, 1976

Web links

• Profile of Sreten Damjanović at the Institute for Applied Training Science
• Sreten Damjanović in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )