Dr Veljko Narančić

As a member of the athletics national team, doctor Veljko Narančić (1898 - 1983) competed in three editions of the Olympic Games in 1924, 1932 and 1936.
In Paris in 1924, he ranked 8th in the discus throw among 32 competitors from 18 countries (37,35 m), and in the shot put he was 12th among 28 athletes from 15 countries (13,21 m).
In Los Angeles in 1932, he was second from the bottom i.e. 17th in the discus throw (36,51 m).
In Berlin in 1936, he failed to qualify in the discus throw.
A special attention should be dedicated to Narančić’s participation in the Los Angeles Games. The Yugoslav Olympic Committee was not interested in the Games on account of high costs that such a lengthy journey would incur. Veljko Narančić, a dentist from Zagreb and a professor from Zemun Vilim Mesner (1904 - 1988), a clerk of the Ministry for Physical Education and a participant of the Amsterdam Games, decided to travel to the USA and oblige the Yugoslav expatriates who had demanded from the Ministry that Yugoslavia’s athletes compete in the Games.

Narančić and Mesner went to the USA partly financially aided by the Ministry for Physical Education (their task was to examine the status of physical culture in the USA and the organisation of the Games), partly from their personal resources, and were registered for the Games by Milivoje Naumović, the Yugoslav consul in San Francisco. The IOC accepted the application, and so did Sigfrid Edstrom, president of the International Amateur Athletic Federation and future IOC president, and the Yugoslav national flag was on the Coliseum Stadium alongside 36 flags of the participant nations. Narančić, exhausted by the arduous journey did not achieve the result he had been hoping for, but he preserved the continuity of Yugoslavia’s participation in the Games. His companion Mesner suffered an injury that prevented him from competing, and consequently his name cannot be found on the list of the participants.

Incredibly, the YOC lodged a protest to the IOC for allowing Narančić to compete in the Games without being registered by the national committee, and the IOC president Henri de Baillet-Latour publicly apologised to the YOC at the 1933 IOC Session held in Vienna.

Veljko Narančić was a member of “HŠK Konkordija” from Zagreb, for a while he even served as a vice-president of the Yugoslav Boxing Federation. Following the Second World War he was the head of a health-promoting body called the Association for Physical Education of Yugoslavia (FISAJ). In 1947 he founded the first sports clinic in Rijeka, and was an honorary member of the Yugoslav Association of Sports Doctors.