European Athletics is very saddened to hear of the death of Czech discus great Imrich Bugar at the age of 70.
Bugar’s initial sport was handball before he was encouraged by a schoolteacher to try the discus.
"I was 15, I played handball and I could shoot well. One Friday, a teacher put a discus in my hand and said there was a district championship on Sunday and asked if I wanted to try. So I got on my bike and went to Dunajska Streda.
"Everyone threw with a spin, I only threw from a standing position. In my first attempt I swung my arm, threw 31.14 meters and won," said Bugar in an interview with Radio Prague.
Bugar went on to win gold for Czechoslovakia at the 1982 European Athletics Championships in Athens before becoming the event’s inaugural world champion at the 1983 World Athletics Championships in Helsinki.
However, Bugar was denied the chance of improving on his silver medal from the 1980 Olympic Games due to the Communist boycott of the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles where Bugar would have been one of the favourites for the title.
Bugar still competed at a high level for another decade. He set his lifetime best of 71.26m in 1985, a mark which remains the Czech record more than 40 years later, and went on to win 15 national titles in total. He also had the distinction of being the flagbearer for Czechoslovakia at the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul.
After retiring from competitive athletics in 1994, Bugar worked in the international relations department for his long-time club Dukla Prague and served as vice-chairman for the Czech Olympians Club.
He was also the manager for the Ludvik Danek Memorial, a meeting which he organised in honour of the 1972 Olympic discus champion and predecessor as Czech record-holder in the discus.
European Athletics passes on its condolences to Bugar’s friends and family as well as the Czech and Slovakian athletics communities.