28. Oktober 2019  
Ljubljana, SLO  
Artistic Gymnastics

Miroslav Cerar - the 'King of Pommel horse' celebrates 80th Birthday

Miroslav Cerar (SLO)

MIROSLAV CERAR was recognized the world over for his mastery of the pommel horse.
Born in 1939, October 28 in Ljubljana, the capital of present-day Slovenia, Miroslav Cerar was destined to discover gymnastics and dominate Yugoslavian men's gymnastics for an astonishing 14 years. Miroslav Cerar competed in three Olympiads - in 1960, 1964 and 1968. Known as the king of the pommel horse event for more than a decade, four of his six world championship medals, and both Olympic gold medals, in 1964 and 1968, came on that apparatus.
He won his first world championship medal, a bronze, on the pommel horse, as the 1958 World Championships in Moscow.
His final gold medal, again on the pommel horse, came at the 1970 World Championships in his hometown of Ljubljana. During the course of his international career, he won 21 European medals, including 10 golds, to go with his six World and two Olympic gold medals.

Miroslav Cerar (left) and GYMmedia chief Eckhard Herholz in Berlin at an Olympic Youth Day (2010)

An extraordinary Olympic career ...!

After the big Olympic Champions on pommel horse 1960 in Rome, Boris Shakhlin (URS) and Eugen Ekman (FIN) Miroslav Cerar took the control of this apparatus for a whole decade, was Olympic champion in Tokyo (1964) and Mexico City (1968), winning all three world championships on pommel horse in the sixties, in Prague (1962), Dortmund (1966) and crowned his career in 1970 in his hometown Ljubljana with the third gold medal:

♦ This was the Golden Exercise
    from the 17th Worlds 1966 in Dortmund of the
   "King of Pommel Horse", Miroslav Cerar:

* Youtube (4.100)

Cerar was the all-around champion of Yugoslavia beginning as a Junior National Champion in 1956. He was to win the national championship 13 times, and he was honored as the best all-around athlete in Yugoslavia, in all of sport, a total of nine times. He was member of the Slovenian Olympic Academy, the Fair Play Commission of the Slovenian Olympic Committee, and the Executive Committee of the European Fair Play Movement During his illustrious career, Cerar has earned the International Olympic Committee's highest honor, The Olympic Order. Since retiring he has served as an esteemed member of the Slovenian Olympic Academy and the Fair Play Commission of the Slovenian Olympic Committee. For the past four years, he has served as a member of the executive committee of the European Fair Play Movement.

In 1999 Miroslav Cerar was inducted into the "International Gymnastics Hall of Fame" as the second Slovenian, the "little" big gymnast of the last century, Leon Stukelj (1997).

* Miroslav Cerar and Mitja Petkovsek at the monument of the "little big" gymnast of the 20th century,
  the Slovenian hero Leon STUKELJ (1898 - 1999)
.
Miroslav Cerar was married to Zdenka Cerar (1941-2013), who was the first female State Prosecutor General of the Republic of Slovenia (1999-2004), Minister of Justice (2004) and Vice-President of the LDS. In her youth she was twice Youth Champion in gymnastics in Yugoslavia and a member of the Yugoslav team. After she ended her active career, she became a coach and referee. He was a student of law and a lawyer for many years.
Their son Miroslav "Miro" Cerar is a Slovenian lawyer and politician. From 2014 to 2018 he was Prime Minister of Slovenia. Since September 2018 he is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia in the Šarec Cabinet.
(C) gymmedia / E. Herholz