Stanko Bloudek was born in Idrija in 1890, and in his youth he competed in various fields of sport and was at the same time one of their first exponents. Later, he worked at the club level and the national level as a coach, designer and builder of sport facilities, and as a patron. Following his Czech father and Slovene mother, he attended schools in Ljubljana and Prague and worked in various places so that in addition to his excellent technical mind - he was an engineer in body and soul - he embodied internationalism.
However, his outstanding virtue was an almost visionary view of the future that was reflected in his numerous inventions and in his approach to sport as well. In the 1930's when Ljubljana athletes discovered Planica for their winter sport needs and established a sports center there (simultaneously a tourist achievement), they decided to build a ski jump. They set themselves the task of building one large enough that it would be possible to hold World Championship ski jumping competitions as well. Thanks to Stanko Bloudek and his colleagues Janez Rožman on the technical side and Joso Gorec on the organizational side, they carried out their plan. The International Skiing Federation did not initially trust Planica with a World Championship, but Planica became world-renowned anyway since in this valley near the Italian-Austrian-Slovene (at that time, Yugoslav) border, ski jumpers achieved distances that were matched nowhere else. The tradition from the 1930's has been preserved until today: Planica is justifiably considered the cradle of a new skiing discipline - ski flying (the first jumps over 100 meters and over 200 meters were made here) - and it is still the venue boasting the greatest number of world records and competitions (including World Championships).
In the 1930's, Bloudek was already predicting flights over 150 meters, and after World War II when he gained more experience refined by the lessons he learned as a constructor of airplanes, over 200 meters.
Bloudek was active and original in many other fields. When he built a ski lift for the jumpers at Planica, he laid the foundations for the development our alpine ski resorts, and he always devoted attention to ice sports. As a national figure skating champion, he was a member of the Yugoslav Olympic team at the second Winter Olympic Games held in St. Moritz in 1928, although in the end he did not compete. In Ljubljana (for example, in Tivoli Park) and later elsewhere as well, he built the ice rinks without which there would be no flourishing hockey in Slovenia today.
He also contributed to the Olympic movement as an official, although he preferred working "in the field." He participated at the founding meeting of the Yugoslav Olympic Committee in January 1919 in Zagreb, became a committee member, and was in the first Yugoslav Olympic expedition to Antwerp in 1920. After World War II, he served for some time as the president of the Gymnastics Committee of Slovenia and of the Yugoslav Olympic Committee, and in 1948 - as the first and so far only Slovene - as a member of the International Olympic Committee.
Stanko Bloudek would have been very gratified and honoured if he had lived to experience the 14th Winter Olympic games in Sarajevo in 1984. As he was active throughout Yugoslavia and in neighbouring countries as a builder, we can certainly consider the candidacy of three neighbours for the Olympic Games his legacy.
