Sixteen years since the death of the greatest athlete of Bosnia and Herzegovina of all time, Mirza Delibašić

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Mirza Delibašić was a great basketball player. One of the greatest of a generation that dominated our region and the whole of Europe, and even the world.

He reached the pinnacle of European basketball with Sarajevo's Bosna, was world champion, and Olympic champion. With his passing, basketball in the former Yugoslavia was left without its last romantic.

He was born in Tuzla on January 9, 1954. He began his sports career in 1968, when he became the junior champion of Bosnia and Herzegovina in tennis. In the same year, he became a member of the Tuzla basketball club Sloboda, where he played until 1972, when he transferred to Sarajevo's Bosna, playing his first game against Split's Jugoplastika.

For Bosna, he played 700 games and scored approximately 14,000 points. As a player, Mirza Delibašić led Bosna to the European championship title in 1979. He was also one of the stars of the Spanish royal club Real Madrid, where he achieved notable results.

As the coach of the BiH national team in Germany in 1993, he achieved the greatest success of BiH basketball in European championships to date, winning eighth place.

In the jersey of the Yugoslav national team, he was the champion of the Balkans, Europe, the world, and an Olympic winner. He wore the Yugoslav jersey 176 times and scored 1,759 points.

He received many sports and social awards, and was chosen as the best athlete of Bosnia and Herzegovina four times, after which he received a special recognition as an exceptional ace and became a member of the jury for selecting the athlete. He was declared the best basketball player of SFRY in 1980.

He remained loyal to BiH even during the siege, refusing the offer from Real's management to exchange besieged Sarajevo for Madrid.

Death found him as the director of KK Bosna on December 8, 2001.