Islam Ðugum

Islam Ðugum (born 1 June 1960) is a Bosnian long-distance runner. From Duvno, Ðugum grew up running and playing football. In 1980, he won his first major competition, and during the 1980s, he was a member of the Yugoslavia national cross country team and set two national records while working at a shoe factory. He served in the army during the Bosnian War and continued training during this time, running 15 to 20 miles each day. He competed at the 1994 European Athletics Championships, the 1995 World Championships in Athletics, and in the men's marathon at the 1996 Summer Olympics, where he served as the Bosnian flagbearer at the opening ceremony. He has also served as a coach.

Early life Ðugum was born on 1 June 1960 in Duvno, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, FPR Yugoslavia, and grew up in the village of Oplećani. He is Muslim and grew up on the family farm. During the 1970s, he showed promise in athletics, winning many elementary school competitions, and he also was a footballer, playing in the junior ranks with FK Budućnost Banovići along with his two brothers, Šaban and Ahmed. He attended the University of Sarajevo and enrolled at the Faculty of Science as a chemistry major, but later dropped out in 1980.

Ðugum served in the Yugoslav People's Army as a tank driver in Karlovac. At the Championships, he met Valerio Pichoni, a journalist for Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport, who asked what Ðugum's "greatest sporting wish was". Afterwards, he returned to Bosnia, although he was nearly killed when a bus he was riding on overturned on a mountain road. That same year, he participated at the Rome Marathon, finishing with a career best time of 2:24, and organized the Vivicittà International City Athletic Race in Sarajevo, which had 100 participants in its first year.

In 1997, Medina Šehić made the film Olimpijci (Olympians) based on Ðugum's career, which won first place at the Portorož Festival.