Dragutin Topić

Dragutin Topić is a retired Serbian high jumper, former European champion and world junior record holder.

Biography

Topić is a world junior record holder with 2.37 m, which he set while winning the 1990 World Junior Championships, three weeks before his win at the senior European Championships. In the same year, Topić received the Golden Badge award for best athlete of Yugoslavia. Topić set five national records and claimed four Yugoslav national championships in the men's high jump event. He is a former member of AK Crvena zvezda, where he spent the majority of his career.
Topić competed until 2012, and had one of the longest careers in high-level high jump, since he holds not only world junior record with 2.37 m, but also world masters record for the ages over 35, and over 40 years of age.
He competed at eight World Championships, and at six Olympic Games, which is an Olympic record for high jump, and he also shared the record for most appearances at the Olympics by a male track and field athlete with distance runner João N'Tyamba and race walker Jesús Ángel García, who later broke the record. In 2024 he received Coaching award at the Golden Tracks awards organized by the European Athletic Association.

On 2 February 2001, after a meeting in Wuppertal, Germany, he was tested and his urine sample showed the presence of norandrosterone in concentrations slightly higher than allowed. He was tested positive to norandrosterone and suspended for two years.

His wife is Serbian former track and field athlete and national record holder in triple jump, Biljana Topić, and he served as her coach while he was still an active competitor. Their daughter, Angelina Topić, won the high jump event at the 2022 European U18 Championships and also holds the national record in high jump, as well as equal world U18 best. During the 1990's, Topić was a member of the Yugoslav Left political party.