THE PHENOMENON OF THE FOURTH PLACE IN SPORT THROUGH THE SOCIAL AND MEDIA PRISM: THE OLYMPIC AND PARALYMPIC GAMES
Authors: Bajić Predrag 
Published: February 2023

The complexity of everyday life, which brings countless challenges, confrontations, obstacles and, of course, beautiful moments, certainly goes beyond the simplified picture that is visible in the public only on the basis of the final “product”. Sport is a segment of society in which the result is clearly visible, and on the basis of which those more or less successful are ranked, but there is a harsh limit beyond which the effort invested is incomparably less appreciated and the achieved result is not adequately valued in society and the media. That dividing line is usually placed before the fourth place and is symbolized by the medals and other awards to those who place above and the certainty of sinking into oblivion for the others. Through research on Yugoslav and Serbian athletes whose greatest achievement at the Olympic and Paralympic Games was the fourth place (a total of 75 Olympic and 13 Paralympic athletes) and also through subsequent conversations with some of them, this global phenomenon, which permeates the world of sports and other segments of society, comes into the limelight. At the same time, through this work, the exceptional results of the athletes from this region are saved from oblivion. Looking at the answers to the key question, it is obvious that the interviewees mostly feel regret, i.e. regret for the missed opportunity to win a medal, often mixed with the feelings of pride, especially when their results are viewed from today’s perspective, bearing in mind that athletes think of the Games as the greatest event in sports. “Being fourth” is an everlasting phenomenon having no end and no unique conclusion, getting new heroes again and again.

This paper is an adapted segment, both theoretical and research-based, of the book “Being fourth: Champions without an Olympic medal” (Predrag Đ. Bajić with students of Faculty of Sport, 2021, publisher: Faculty of Sport). The book emphasizes the importance of “the fourth place” through the social and media prism and lists all the athletes whose greatest success at the Olympic and Paralympic Games was the fourth place, starting from the debut of the Olympic athletes in Stockholm in 1912 and the Paralympic athletes in Heidelberg in 1972 to the Tokyo 2021 Games. The condition for selecting athletes was that they competed under the flags of the Kingdom of Serbia, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia, the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro and/or the Republic of Serbia. The list also included the athletes in individual sports who competed in Barcelona 1992 as independent Olympic and Paralympic participants without any national symbols, as a result of the UN Security Council’s sanctions against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Finally, the list included those who had no “playing time” but were part of the national team in team sports and those who, at some point in their lives, competed for other countries, provided that they did not win a medal at the Games under their flags.

In the book “Being fourth: Champions without an Olympic medal”, the research described in this paper is a segment of a project that includes examples of the practical power of an interview as a journalistic genre in shedding light on this phenomenon through the life stories of 22 athletes whose greatest success at the Olympic and Paralympic Games was the fourth place (Boris Čukvas, Ištvan Semeredi, Franciska Ševarac, Srećko Pejović, Dragan Pantelić, Nikica Klinčarski, Miloš Šestić, Zlatko Vujović, Slobodanka Čolović Maričić, Dragana Pešić Belojević, Nataša Kolega, Svetlana Vujčić, Milan Živić, Dragutin Topić, Dejan Perić, Nedeljko Jovanović, Dragan Škrbić, Nenad Peruničić, Željko Čeliković, Zorana Arunović, Tina Krajišnik and Maja Škorić). This is also illustrated by numerous photos and newspaper reports from the day they reached the fourth place.

After these interviews, 6 more athletes who, in addition to the fourth place, also have an Olympic medal, spoke about the phenomenon (Mirko Nišović, Tomislav Ivković, Radomir Rakonjac, Mirjana Đurica Vermezović, Borislava Perić Ranković and Damir Mikec).

In this way, a material trace has been left for the years ahead. The collected data were sorted, supplemented and corrected through the conversations with the actual participants, emphasizing the importance of remembering and knowing the past.

The project “Being fourth” started as an integral part of practical classes in sports journalism and research skills in the second year of study at the Faculty of Sport of the University “Union – Nikola Tesla” in Belgrade. It was later expanded to include students of other years of study. The goal was to present the “the fourth place” phenomenon as a relevant concept that is recognized not only in sports, but also in the wider social community, and to do so in ways specific to journalism studies.

In addition to Predrag Bajić, 24 students from the department of sports journalism took part in the realization of the book. These are the following: Uroš Selenić, Aleksa Janković, Elena Deleva, Đorđe Samoilović, Dušan Fatić, Stefan Stanković, Aleksandar Stajkovac, Ognjen Borjanović, Aleksandar Filipović, Filip Ljubisavljević, Anđelija Ratić, Dušan Krstić, Miloš Dragović, David Radanović, Miloš Petrović, Sara Đorđević, Aleksandar Brežanin, Boško Petrović, Ana Ratković, Nemanja Andrić, Ivan Miletić, Stefan Branežac, Vukić Stojanović and Atanasije Nikolić. The editor was professor Radivoje Petrović, and the reviewers were professors Zoran Jevtović, Vladimir Koprivica and Zoran Aracki. The book also pays tribute to the late founder and dean of the Faculty of Sport, professor Ivanka Gajić.

The book promotion was held in the main lecture hall of the Faculty of Sport in Belgrade on March 31, 2022. Among the speakers were Nedeljko Jovanović, fourth at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games in handball, professors Radivoje Petrović and Vladimir Koprivica, Jelena Arunović, who is Zorana Arunović’s coach (Zorana finished fourth in shooting both at the London 2012 and Tokyo 2021 Games) and Predrag Bajić. Moreover, on behalf of all the students who took part in the project, Elena Deleva gave a speech, Bojan Sekulić, the president of the Faculty Council, addressed the audience and the promotion program was led by Filip Ljubisavljević. Also, other participants of the book spoke at the promotion.

Parts of the book were edited and published in the form of a serial in the Independent Daily Newspaper “Vesti” through 28 articles in the period between June 7 and July 9/10, 2022. They were also published on the Web portal of this daily newspaper.