I’m forever impressed by the flexibility of the people I meet in the lands that once made up Yugoslavia. I’m not talking about supple limbs and dexterity, although that is generally quite surprising as well. I’m jabbering about the ability to excel across multiple areas, of skill-sets that are just about as varied as it gets. You’ll meet a singer-songwriter playing songs that seem to have been put together by angels, only to find out that she is also a high-level economist or something. Actually, this is the Balkans, there are no economists, but you get the point. All of this is leading to today’s story, of a Serbian architect who also happened to be the first Slav to win an Olympic medal.

Momčilo Tapavica was born in 1872, in the small village of Nadalj in Vojvodina (Serbia), then called Nadalja and then a part of Austria-Hungary, or specifically the Kingdom of Hungary. Complicated stuff, this Balkans nonsense. When Momčilo was born, did his parents know the glory that awaited him just 23 and a bit years later? Obviously not, unless they were soothsayers, but they likely followed the bog-standard parent route of believing that their child would make history. Mr and Mrs Tapavica were not wrong.

Like most Serbs born in this part of the world, Momčilo headed to Novi Sad for the bulk of his studies, where he read architecture and civil engineering. He was a strong student, a qualifier that should be taken in all the possible ways it can, as he was both academically strong and literally strong. Momčilo excelled in all sporting activities, turning heads in the region, gaining attention in plenty of different sports but excelling in the wacky quartet of tennis, wrestling, weightlifting and athletics. Actually, the four do have somewhat similar demands.

Anyway, Tapavica impressed so much that he was drafted into the Hungarian squad for the very first modern Olympics. The 1896 Olympic Games took part in Athens but it isn’t remembered particularly fondly, largely because of the whole racism and sexism thing. 14 nations and 241 athletes took part, 100% male and 78% European, with only three non-European nations taking part (Australia, Chile and United States, for the record). Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics, was unashamed in his spouting of white supremacist nonsense. So yeah, the Olympics can do one.

I’m still telling the tale of Momčilo Tapavica though, don’t you worry. Tapavica was scheduled to take part in tennis, wrestling and weightlifting, and his team had high hopes for him. Those hopes were almost immediately realised in the tennis, as Tapavica came through his first-round match against Dimitris Frangopoulos of Greece. He had a bye in the second round, I’m not entirely sure how but there we go, before coming up short against Dionysios Kasdaglis (also of Greece, but actually Egyptian), who in turn lost to John Boland of the UK (an Irish nationalist, coincidentally) in the final. There was no bronze medal match, so Tapavica shared the bronze with Konstantinos Paspatis, another Greek.

It doesn’t really sound quite so impressive when written down, but the history books aren’t bothered about how impressed you may or may not be. He may have been representing Hungary, but Momčilo Tapavica had become the first Slav to win an Olympic medal, the first Serb to do so. His name in history was assured. Tapavica could have doubled it up with some success in the weightlifting if he hadn’t overestimated his own strength and pulled a muscle in his shoulder. He wasn’t fully fit for the wrestling, so he came back to Vojvodina with a grand total of one medal in his case, one more medal than the overwhelming majority of human beings that have ever lived. He never took part in top-level competitive sport again, but still turned out for local teams and sports clubs wherever he was based.

That was Budapest, to begin with, although he was soon back to Novi Sad to open an architectural firm because yes, underneath all of the muscle and Olympic Bronze medal stuff was a qualified architect. Politics kept getting in the way in NS. Time and time again Tapavica found himself frustrated by backstabbing and the rest, being offered projects only to see them passed on to some friend of a friend of a friend. This remains the only way to get a job in Balkan politics today.

It was at this point that Nicholas I of Montenegro stepped in. Nicky was ageing (aren’t we all) but he was no fool, and he continued to bring in architects to make Cetinje the gorgeous city it is today. Tapavica was brought down from Vojvodina and he soon set to work, designing buildings as delightful as the German Embassy and the National Bank. He also helped create the Boka Hotel in Herceg Novi, although the earthquake of 1979 put an end to that. His greatest creation in Novi Sad? The Matica srpska building, on the corner of Matice srpske and Trg Marije Trandafil. Tapavica moved to Poreč after World War II and helped reconstruct the city, but a case of chronic jaundice eventually saw to him. He died on January 10, 1949.

So, a celebrated architect and the first Slav to win an Olympic medal. Not bad for a boy from Nadalj. Next time you meet someone from the Balkans, be sure to ask them for their full list of skills.

John Bills writes books about what was once Yugoslavia, tomes covering history, travel, booze and the rest. These magical pieces of literary competency can be purchased at this link, so get yourself over there and do the right thing. Pay attention to the discounts.