Dragoljub Velimirovic (1942 - 2014)

Coming from a chess family, his mother Jovanka was a master, he was born in Valjevo (Serbia) and very soon become one of the leading Yugoslav juniors and later for long period one of the best grandmasters. Three times he won the Yugoslav Chess Championship, for two decades he was member of the national team. In his rich collection there are two Olympic medals (in Nice 1974 for individual and team performance) another silver from the World Team Championship (Lucerne 1989) and three individual and two team medals from the European Team Championships. In the theory of chess openings there is a sharp variation of the Sicilian Defence named as the Velimirovic attack. His style of play was attacking, always with sacrificial possibilities. Several of his games will always be collected in chess anthologies of great games.

FIDE awarded him the GM title in 1973 and his peak rating was 2575 ( 1986). In the Merano World Championship Match between Karpov and Korchnoi, he was member of Korchnoi’s team.