When 22-year-old Yugoslav boxer Anton Josipović stood on the podium at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, he knew that boos would follow.
They awarded him a medal, placed a laurel wreath on his head and sang the anthem "Hey Slavs". but the audience was not very pleased.
Evander Holyfield, one of the greatest boxing champions of the 1980s and 1990s, also known for his shorter sentence due to the famous bite Tyson's mother, was standing to the left of him on the pedestal.
The American boxer was disqualified in the semifinals of the category up to 81 kilograms, by the controversial decision of the Yugoslav judge Gligori Novičić, even though he knocked out his opponent.
"The late journalist political Slobo Momčilović told me the other day before the award: 'Everyone will be against you, they will whistle and shoot at you, and you climb up nicely, call Holyfield next to you and we will show them,'" recalled the 61-year-old Josipović in an interview with the BBC on Serbian.
"I did that and all you hear is applause. We did it boyishly," he adds with a smile.
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Josipović's gold is only one of four boxing medals that summer in 1984 in the City of Angels, at the most successful Olympic Games for Yugoslavia in history.
Among the 18 awards are the silver of Redžep Redžepovski in the category up to 51 kilograms and the bronzes of Aziz Salihu in the super heavyweight and Mirko Puzović in the category up to 63 kilograms.
"For me, that is the most beautiful period of my career, an experience I will never forget," Puzović told the BBC in Serbian.
Three boxing stories
- One fatal "stop"
Josipović did not fight for the gold at all, the medal was awarded to him at the green table, which is all a consequence of Holifield's case.
What actually happened?
Near the end of the second round of the semi-finals, Kevin Berry from New Zealand dropped his hands for a moment, which Holyfield took advantage of and sent him to the floor with a powerful punch.
Referee Novičić counted Beria to 10 and marked the end of the match.
However, the knocked out New Zealander won.
Holyfield was disqualified because he threw the last punch moments after Novicic shouted "stop" and stopped the match.
Barry made it to the finals, but, according to the rules of the time, a boxer after a knockout was not allowed in the ring for the next 28 days - and there was gold for Josipović.
"When we arrived in Los Angeles, I said to myself 'I want to stay here as long as I can, to fight even if Mike Tyson or Muhammad Ali were in front of me,'" says Josipović.
The member of Banja Luka's Slavia defeated Mustafa Musa from Algeria in the semi-finals, and previously Marcus Bott from Germany.
Forty years later, he especially remembers the Olympic village, where "everything is at your fingertips".
"From the hair salon to the laundromat, everything was for nothing and you don't need to worry about anything, just for the result," Josipović remembers.
- From the army to the ring
The captain of that selection was Mirko Puzović, a former boxer from Kragujevac's Radnički, who calls the Olympic Games in Los Angeles the greatest success of his career.
He especially remembers that, as he says, he saw a bunch of athletes that he would never have thought possible in his life, such as Holifield and the famous athlete Karl Luis.
"At that time I was in the army, I had no preparation. Only a month before Los Angeles, I was released from the service to train," says the 68-year-old Puzović.
That's why, he says, he was very nervous before the competition, but not because of his opponent, but because of himself.
"After all, it's boxing, training and sparring for a month is not the same as an official match," says Puzović, two-time vice-champion of Europe and seven-time champion of Yugoslavia.
Before the first match against the Canadian Denis Lamber, he did not sleep all night.
"All the time I was thinking about what I was going to do and how I was going to do it," he recalls.
However, Lamber was defeated without much problem, then Steve Larimore from the Bahamas and Jean Mbereke from Cameroon, and in the semi-finals he was defeated by the local boxer Jerry Page.
Finally bronze.
"I will never forget when it all ended, and when we had a party on the seventh or eighth floor of the hotel where we were.
"We drank, played, it was truly unforgettable."
- Olivia Newton John
61-year-old Redžep Redžepovski from North Macedonia especially remembers the game and dance - but from the very beginning of the tournament.
"Olivia Newton John had a concert for athletes, we went there and went a little overboard... It was a madhouse," Redzepovski recalled in an interview with the BBC in Serbian.
"I was young, 22 years old, I liked sports, but also the company and playing a little disco, so she invited me on stage with her to dance."
English-Australian actress and singer, best known for her role in the film Brilliant with John Travolta, at the end, she says, she praised him for "doing well".
However, it all had consequences.
"I ate and drank a little too much and the next day, mother, I can't lose weight, those last 200 grams before the match... I sit for 20 minutes in the sauna, sweat drips from me and nothing."
Mate Parlov, one of the most famous Yugoslav boxers in history, stepped in to help him.
"Mate sees that I'm not doing well and says 'come on, I'll keep you company' and I lose those 200 grams, but he loses two kilos," says Redžepovski.
"He had something to take off, I don't," adds the 51-kilogram flyweight fighter with a smile.
In the first match, he was better than Sangu Teraporn from Thailand, then Pat Clinton from Great Britain, in order to defeat the Austrian Jeff Fenesh in the quarter-finals, and Ibrahim Bilali from Kenya in the semi-finals.
In the final, he was defeated by American boxer Steve McCrory.
"It's hard for an American to take a medal in America, little morgen," says Redžepovski.
Yugoslavia and boxing
Yugoslav boxers from the Olympic Games brought a total of 11 medals, which makes boxing the second most trophy sport of the former SFRY.
Only wrestling has more Olympic medals with 16, while gymnasts also won 11 medals.
All this made boxing one of the most popular sports in Yugoslavia, and boxers real superstars.
Olympic medals of Yugoslavia in boxing
- Mexico 1968 - Zvonko Vujin, bronze
- Munich 1972 - Zvonko Vujin, bronze; Mate Parlov, honey
- Montreal 1976 - Tadija Kačar, silver; Ace Rusevski, bronze
- Moscow 1980 - Slobodan Kačar, gold
- Los Angeles in 1984 - Anton Josipović, gold; Redžep Redžepovski, silver; Mirko Puzović and Aziz Salihu, bronze
- Seoul 1988 - Damir Škaro, bronze
Medals were won because "we knew what to do and how to do it in order to achieve success," Redžepovski points out.
However, after the war in the territory of Yugoslavia, boxing was in a knockdown for a long time.
"I was proud of Yugoslavia, we died for it... When Yugoslavia fell apart, everything fell apart for me," says Josipović, an ethnic Croat born in Banja Luka, the capital of Republika Srpska, one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
"I was never ready for it, I never believed it would happen like that."
He sees this as the reason for the great decline of boxing, adding that "without a serious state, there is no serious sport".
After the war, only Croatia took an Olympic medal from the countries of the former Yugoslavia - Filip Hrgović won bronze in the super heavyweight category in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Boxers today
After that Los Angeles in 1984, former Yugoslav boxers befell the most diverse fates.
In 1987, Redžepovski was the champion of Yugoslavia in the lightweight category.
He retired after 120 fights in amateur boxing, with 110 wins, four draws and six losses, it is stated on the website of the Olympic Committee of Serbia.
After finishing his career, he worked as a boxing coach in his native Kumanovo, but he had a hard time.
"What can I tell you, I was a social case, for 50 euros there were six of us in the house - four children, my wife and me.
"Now I receive a pension because of the medals, but that's purely so you don't die, where can you leave some dinars, travel, live?".
Aziz Salihu, the famous heavyweight from Kosovo, also had a hard time after his career, refusing a Serbian pension because of his support for the idea of an independent Kosovo.
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Former teammates from the national team are still regularly heard from.
"We had almost nine of them from Serbia, Puzović, Tadija (Kačar), we go to their place and that's it," says Redžepovski.
Puzović adds that "just yesterday he heard from Anto", as well as that he "recently went to Reža's".
"We maintain those friendships, what are we going to do?" And as far as sports are concerned, they quickly forget you, what can I tell you," says Puzović, today the president of the Veterans' Council of the Boxing Association of Serbia.
Of all those listed, Josipović had by far the most dramatic life.
He switched to professional boxing in 1990, winning his first eight matches, and in 1994 and 1995 he was defeated twice by Asmir Vojnović from Croatia.
Two years later, he was shot in Banja Luka, but "the doctors somehow kept him alive".
"Afterwards we joked, next time they have to try some explosives, they don't succeed like this," says Josipović.
Although he "had some misfortunes", today he is "happy and fulfilled", and he is especially happy that he is "welcomed everywhere, from Skopje to Ljubljana".
And at the first mention of Macedonia, he immediately talks about Redžepovski.
"He's a good guy, we were roommates at the Olympic Games - two medals from the same room, man."
The medal from Los Angeles is no more.
As he says, it was with a friend who had a safe, which was robbed a few years after the war.
"They can also issue a replica, you just have to go to where you won it. The trip to Los Angeles didn't really bring me, and times are getting harder and harder.
"When my country failed, I don't long for that medal so much... I would have given it to Novak Djokovic if he hadn't won it, he deserved to have it."
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