Marko Račič

Marko Račič (25 April 1920 – 27 May 2022) was a Slovenian athlete who participated in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. Representing Yugoslavia, he advanced to the semi-finals of the men's 400 metre competition, but did not make it beyond the opening round of the men's 4 × 400 metres relay. A local and state sprinting record holder, Račič competed internationally for many years and made appearances at the 1946 and 1950 European Athletics Championships prior to taking up personal training and coaching in 1953. He served as an international athletics judge and an amateur sports administrator who was on committees for several international sporting events in Yugoslavia, including the 1984 Winter Olympics. From June 2013 until his death, he was the oldest living Slovenian Olympic competitor.

Early life and athletic career Račič was born in Adlešiči near Črnomelj in 1920. He ran his first official race, at 100 metres, on his seventeenth birthday and won it, eventually growing to specialize in this and the 200-metre distance. Athletically active during high school, he furthered his training at a special sports institute in Belgrade. He eventually became a member of JSD Partizan, a military sports club based out of Belgrade,

Among Račič's sixteen international appearances for the country were the 1946 European Athletics Championships in Oslo and the 1950 edition in Brussels, as well as several editions of the Balkan Games. He achieved his personal best time of 49 seconds at 400 metres the following year. In addition to roles in his native country, he also coached in Sweden and Kuwait. He was eventually certified as an international athletics judge, He died on 27 May 2022, at the age of 102.