Branislav Lončar

Branislav Lončar (Serbian Cyrillic: Бранислав Лончар; 19 November 1937 – September 2019) was a Yugoslav and Serbian sport shooter.

Braislav Lončar

Lončar at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney
Personal information
Birth name	Branislav Lončar
Nationality	Serbia
Born	(1937-11-19)19 November 1937 Karađorđevo (Bačka Palanka), Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Died	September 2019 (aged 81) Novi Sad
Height	174 cm (5 ft 9 in)
Weight	74 kg (163 lb)
Sport
Sport	Sports shooting
Event	Small-bore rifle
Medal record Representing  Yugoslavia European Championships 1965 Bucharest FR60PR 1963 Oslo FR40KN

Career

Lončar was born in the village of Karađorđevo, near Bačka Palanka, on 19 November 1937.^[1] He started sport shooting at the age of 11.^[2] He debuted for the Yugoslav sport shooting national team in 1954. As a competitor in both individual and team competitions, he won five medals at the ISSF World Shooting Championships, 11 at the European Shooting Championships and three at the Mediterranean Games. He was the champion of Yugoslavia 15 times.^[3][4] After his successful performance at the European Shooting Championships in 1965 with multiple medals, he was named The Best Athlete of Yugoslavia 1965 by the newspaper DSL Sport.

He competed for Yugoslavia at the 1960 and 1968 Summer Olympics.^[5]

After his competitive career ended, Lončar turned to coaching in Serbia and Yugoslavia, coaching SD Novi Sad, and was a national team selector. Lončar was the head coach of Yugoslavia at the Olympic Games 1988 in Seoul, 1992 in Barcelona, 1996 in Atlanta and 2000 in Sydney. During this period, Yugoslav shooters won three gold, two silver and four bronze Olympic medals, along with a large number of medals at the World and European Championships.^[3]

He also served as secretary-general of the Vojvodina Sports Federation.^[1]

He died in September 2019 in Novi Sad.^[6]