Funeral of Artur Takac

MonteThe funeral of Artur Takac, Honorary IAAF Life Member, who went missing at the end of January 2004 during a family ski holiday in Kopaonik, the highest mountain in central Serbia, will take place on Monday 4 July.

Takac, who was 86 and had been an expert ski enthusiast all his life, in bad weather conditions, after riding a ski lift to the 2000m summit of Kopaonik, on the boundary between Serbia and Kosovo, failed to return, and until last Monday (27 June) his body had not been found.

Takac was born in 1918 in the town of Varazdin in southern Hungary, which later became part of Yugoslavia. After an active sporting career which was cut short by the Second World War, he became an international sports administrator and after playing a key role in the organisation of the 1962 European Championships in Belgrade was elected Secretary of the European Committee by the IAAF Congress. There followed a long and distinguished career with the IOC, IAAF and EAA, during which he was elected Honorary Life Member of the IAAF (1999) and EAA (1987).

In his capacity as European Area Representative on the IAAF Council he actively contributed to the creation of the World Cup, the first step towards the IAAF World Championships in Athletics, the inaugural edition of which was held in 1983.

Appointed in 1969 as Sports Director of the IOC, Takac later became a personal adviser to IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch.

Artur Takac will be buried on Monday in a special area of Belgrade’s Central Cemetery reserved for VIPs.  At 12:00 a memorial Service will be held in Belgrade’s City Hall.
 
The IAAF will be represented by Honorary Life Member Igor Ter-Ovanesyan - Artur’s old friend and colleague. President Lamine Diack and General Secretary Istvan Gyulai are already in Singapore for the IOC Session.

IAAF

A full obituary will be published in the next IAAF Newsletter

Original news story -