Radomir Kovačević
Personal information | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Born | 20 March 1954 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Died | 14 June 2006 | (aged 52)||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Occupation | Judoka | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Country | Yugoslavia | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Judo | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Weight class | +95 kg, Open | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Achievements and titles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Olympic Games | (1980) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
World Champ. | (1979) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
European Champ. |
( 1976 ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Profile at external databases | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
IJF | 54178 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
JudoInside.com | 5524 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Updated on 20 June 2023. |
Radomir Kovačević (20 March 1954 in
Biography
Radomir Kovačević was born in
The very next year Kovačević became a wrestler in the
In the summer of 1971, after wrestling practice, Kovačević had decided to change sports yet again, when he saw small Japanese man "throwing people like paper airplanes", as he put it, at a local Judo club. The same day he resigned from his wrestling club and joined the judo club. After training for six months at that club he managed to throw the Japanese on one knee. On the spot, the Japanese offered to send him to Japan to study judo.
Two days later, he was flown off to Japan, where he enrolled in Tokai University and continued to practice Judo. He competed for the college and on his fourth year became captain of the judo team. He was one of the few foreigners to become captain of a Japanese judo team. During his time in Japan he also gained interest in Eastern religion and philosophy.
In 1980, he became a bronze-medalist at the Moscow Olympics. He was a coach at
Starting in the late 1990s, Kovačević held a three-to-four-hour-long Judo class on Saturdays at the Spartak Judo Club, in
Death
On 15 June 2006, after eighteen months of fighting
References
External links
- Radomir Kovačević at the International Judo Federation
- Radomir Kovačević at JudoInside.com
- Radomir Kovačević at AllJudo.net (in French)
- Radomir Kovačević at Olympics.com
- Radomir Kovačević at Olympedia
- Radomir Kovačević at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)
- Radomir Kovačević at The-Sports.org