The native form of this personal name is Tapavicza Momcsilló. This article uses the Western name order.

Medal record
Momcsilló Tapavicza (Momčilo Tapavica), the first ethnic Serb that won an Olympic medal as well as the winner of Kingdom of Hungary's only Olympic medal in Tennis. [1]
Men's Tennis
Competitor for  Hungary
Olympic Games
Bronze	1896 Athens	Singles

Momcsilló Tapavicza (native Serbian name: Momčilo Tapavica, Момчило Тапавица, October 14, 1872 in Nádalja village near Szenttamás, Austria–Hungary (present-day Nadalj and Srbobran, Serbia) – January 10, 1949 in Pula, Socialist Republic of Croatia, FPR Yugoslavia) a Hungarian tennis player, weightlifter, wrestler and architect. Tapavicza was an ethnic Serb. He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens as part of the national team of the Kingdom of Hungary. Tapavica is the first Serb to win an Olympic medal.

Tapavicza won a bronze medal in the singles tennis tournament. In the first round, he defeated D. Frangopoulos of Greece. The second round gave him a bye. Dionysios Kasdaglis of Egypt beat Tapavicza in the semifinal, and with no playoff for third place he shared bronze medal honors with the Greek Konstantinos Paspatis. Tapavicza was the only participant for the Kingdom of Hungary in the 1896 Olympic Tennis competition, ^[2] he participated at 23 years and 177 days old.

[edit] Sports career

Matica srpska building in Novi Sad, designed by Tapavicza

Tapavicza began to practise sports in Novi Sad, continuing his practise in Budapest where he studied architecture and civil engineering at the Higher Technical School.

At the Olympics Tapavicza won a bronze medal in the singles tennis tournament. In the first round, he defeated D. Frangopoulos of Greece. The second round gave him a bye. Dionysios Kasdaglis of Egypt beat Tapavicza in the semifinal, and with no playoff for third place he shared bronze medal honors with the Greek Konstantinos Paspatis. ^[3]

Tapavicza did not compete in the doubles tournament.

He finished last of the six competitors in the two-handed weightlifting event, now known as the clean and jerk. The weight Tapavica lifted is unknown, but was less than 90.0 kilograms.

In the wrestling competition, Tapavicza was defeated in the first round by Stephanos Christopoulos. The two were nearly evenly matched, but Tapavica tired first and conceded. ^[4]

Having returned from Budapest to Novi Sad in 1904 he joined the rowing club “Danubijus”.

[edit] Architecture achievements

In 1908, Tapavicza went to Montenegro, where he designed several buildings. During the First World War, he lived in Morocco, but later returned to Novi Sad, where he run his own architectural design company. He died in 1949 and was buried in cemetery in Pula.

Working as architect, Momčilo Tapavicza designed the building of Matica Srpska in Novi Sad, the buildings of the German Consulate and National Bank in Cetinje, the building of Boka Hotel in Herceg Novi, which was destroyed in the earthquake of 1977.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Hungary at the 1896 Summer Olympics
• Tennis at the 1896 Summer Olympics

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