Nedo cycled 250 km from Sarajevo to Mostar and back every day

People from Banja Luka are remembering Nedim Nedo Skopljak, a cyclist and former representative of the former Yugoslavia. He died suddenly at the age of 32, from the consequences of a heart attack, on November 21, 1984, writes the BH news agency Patria.

Skopljak was among the first athletes from Bosnia and Herzegovina to seriously engage in cycling. And, as those who knew him would say, he was so dedicated to this sport that cycling meant life to him. No one had as much perseverance as Nedo, as his friends affectionately called him.

He was born in Banja Luka, and studied at DIF in Sarajevo. As training, he cycled from Sarajevo to Mostar and back every day. That's about 250 kilometers in a single day. This was a regular training that Skopljak did six days a week. Such enthusiasm could only be possessed by true lovers of this sport, people with big hearts, and great souls, explain Nedo's former friends today.

I asked him what he thought about while riding such a long route.

- About Hotel Bosna (in Banja Luka) and a cold beer! - he told me.

- Doesn't it get boring?

- Sometimes I change tables...! - described one of Nedo's friends his conversation with him.

Throughout his long career, Skopljak achieved many enviable results: he was a multiple republican champion of BiH in all categories. In the 1975 Race of the AVNOJ Paths, he won a stage in Banja Luka. In 1976, in the Tour of Yugoslavia, he finished second in one stage. He was a multiple representative of the former Yugoslavia.

- Nedo was very popular in cycling circles. The day before he died, we were together in the hall playing indoor football. We parted around ten in the evening, only to receive a phone call from his brother the next morning with the sad news that Nedo had suffered a massive heart attack. I immediately went to his house and saw him for the last time. It was a great tragedy for his parents and for all other friends and for sports in general. Everything happened so suddenly that no one could believe it - wrote Džan Hodžić, Nedo's friend who now lives in the USA, reports Patria.