Vera Nikolić
Vera Nikolić ( Serbian - Cyrillic Вера Николић ; born September 23, 1948 in Despotovac ; † June 28, 2021 in Belgrade , Serbia ) was a Yugoslav athlete .
Life
The middle-distance runner began her career in 1964 when she became Yugoslav youth champion and later Balkan youth champion in cross-country at the age of 16 . In the summer of the year she set two national youth records with 57.3 seconds over 400 meters and 2: 14.4 minutes over 800 meters.
At the European Championships in Budapest in 1966 , she won the gold medal in the 800-meter run . At 17 years and 346 days, Vera Nikolić was the youngest European champion at the time, until she was replaced by the Spaniard Mari Cruz Díaz in 1986 . In 1966 she was voted Yugoslav athlete of the year . In 1967 she achieved a junior world record in 1: 25.2 minutes over the rarely run distance of 600 meters. At the European Championships in 1969 she had to be content with third place in Athens. But at the European Championships in 1971 she was again European champion in Helsinki. In the same year she won the Mediterranean Games both the 800 and 1500 meters.
She ran the 800 meters in London in a new world record time of 2: 00.05 minutes on July 20, 1968. As one of the favorites at the 1968 Olympic Games, she could not cope with the pressure of expectation and ended the race prematurely. She changed coach and moved to Zagreb and started for Dinamo Zagreb from then on . Her world record was broken on July 11, 1971 by the German Hildegard Falck . Vera Nikolić is the only Yugoslav athlete who has set a world record in athletics. Her success was initially based on intensive interval training under coach Aleksandar Petrović. It was only in Zagreb, under the direction of the trainer Leo Lang, that she began to lay a broader foundation for stamina. At the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich , Vera Nikolić finished fifth over 800 meters in 1: 59.98 minutes.
After her active career, she became a middle distance coach in Zagreb. Since she had married a Serbian man from Croatia , she got caught in the Croatian war as a Serb between all fronts and lost her job; her husband as well. They first lived with their parents in Ćuprija. She later lived with her family in Kruševac, Serbia, where she worked as a trainer. She had three children and six grandchildren. She died on June 28, 2021 at the Institute of Neurosurgery in Belgrade at the age of 72 from the aftermath of a stroke .
Her best times were:
- 800 m: 1: 59.62 min (1972),
- 1500 m: 4: 12.7 min (1972).
Web links
- Vera Nikolić in the database of Olympedia.org (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ World Junior Records and Best Performances. In: gbrathletics.com. August 9, 2006, accessed June 30, 2021 .
- ↑ Vera Nikolic, zlatna medalja i docek u Cupriji. (Video on YouTube; 2:09 minutes) 1971, accessed February 2, 2018 (Serbian).
- ^ Mediterranean Games. In: gbrathletics.com. 2005, accessed February 2, 2018 .
- ↑ Arnd Krüger : Many roads lead to Olympia. The changes in the training systems for medium and long distance runners (1850–1997). In: Norbert Gissel (Hrsg.): Sports performance in change (= writings of the German Association for Sports Science; 94). Czwalina, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-88020-322-9 , pp. 41-56.
- ↑ a b Dejan Simić: Zvezda - Vera Nikolic. In: srpskopero.rs. April 22, 2017, archived from the original on February 3, 2018 ; Retrieved June 30, 2021 (Serbian).
- ↑ Vera Nikolić: Za mene je Bekrić vanzemaljac, ali ne stvarajmo pritisak sportistima. In: blic.rs . November 19, 2013, accessed February 2, 2018 .
- ^ Večernji list: Vera Nikolić neće odustati od stana. In: Kurir.sr . August 3, 2012, accessed June 30, 2021 (Serbian).
- ↑ Preminula proslavljena atletičarka Vera Nikolić. In: danas.rs . June 28, 2021, accessed June 29, 2021 (Serbian).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Nikolić, Vera |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Николић, Вера (Serbian) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Yugoslav athlete |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 23, 1948 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Despotovac |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 28, 2021 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Belgrade , Serbia |