Who Is Mihail Dudaš

Mihail Dudaš (born in Novi Sad on 1 November 1989) is a Serbian athlete and combined events specialist, and one of the most successful Serbian competitors in the decathlon and heptathlon. He is the national record holder in both events: his best decathlon score is 8,275 points, and his best indoor heptathlon score is 6,099 points.

The most important honour of his career came in Amsterdam in 2016, when he won bronze in the decathlon at the European Championships. Before that, in 2013, he took bronze in the heptathlon at the European Indoor Championships in Gothenburg. He competed at the Olympic Games in London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016, as well as at several World and European Championships.

He ended his career in February 2022, after fifteen years of competition. He later served as sports director of the Athletics Federation of Serbia. Read on to find out how Mihail Dudaš made his way to the top of Serbian athletics, the injuries he went through, and what he left behind.

Early Life and Childhood

Mihail Dudaš was born in Novi Sad, in what was then the SFR of Yugoslavia. He grew up in the Old Town, the part of the city he still considers the most beautiful. In a conversation with the portal Moj Novi Sad, he explained that everything was close by and that the Danube was right next door.

As a boy he spent a great deal of time outdoors. He played football and baseball on the meadow next to the Vojvodina Assembly building, along with all sorts of children’s games. In this way he developed an early all-round athleticism, which would later prove his greatest asset in combined events.

How the Story of Athletics Began

He came to athletics thanks to his older brother, Ivan Dudaš, who was six years his senior. Ivan’s coach at the time was Nedeljko Đorđić, today the principal of the “Đorđe Natošević” primary school, which Mihail also attended. Đorđić invited Ivan to a competition in Germany and brought the younger Mihail along, even though he was not yet training in athletics.

He was seven or eight years old at the time. That international tournament for primary school pupils, in which he later took part several more times, awakened his love of athletics. He later said that this was the moment he realised he wanted to pursue it in life.

From the Long Jump to Combined Events

He first trained in the long jump and also ran the 300 metres. He enjoyed the high jump and the shot put as well. In 2005, as a younger junior, he became national champion in the long jump with a leap of 6.80 metres.

His coach then asked whether he wanted to try combined events. He agreed, and at his very first competition he met the qualifying standard for the world championships. It soon became clear which path he should follow.

His love of nature stayed with him off the track. As a boy, his uncle first took him fishing when he was about five years old. Fishing on the Danube is still his favourite way to relax.

Education

He attended the “Đorđe Natošević” primary school in Novi Sad. Sport took up a large part of his time from the earliest days, but he invested in his education from the start.

He later earned a master’s degree at University College London. He studied on a Chevening scholarship, funded by the British government for young leaders, and his chosen programme was corporate management. In an interview in January 2021, he said he had never wanted to be only an athlete for the rest of his life and that he wanted to connect what he learned with sports management.

Beginning of His Career

Dudaš trained athletics at the Novi Sad club AK Vojvodina, where he remained throughout his competitive career. Until 2011 he was coached by Goran Obradović Čele, then by Feđa Kamasi until 2019. After that, his coach was Duško Miličić.

He won his first significant medal in 2008 at the World Junior Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland. With 7,663 points he took bronze in the decathlon and set a new Serbian junior record. He later said that this medal was his favourite, because it was the most sincere. With that success he achieved what then seemed almost unthinkable: a medal at the world junior championships.

European Championships for Younger Seniors

Another success followed the next year. At the European Under-23 Championships in Kaunas in 2009, he won bronze with 7,855 points. Two years later, at the same competition in Ostrava, he repeated that medal, and with 8,117 points he also set a new national decathlon record.

At that time he belonged to a generation of Serbian athletes who matured together, among them Emir Bekrić and Ivana Španović, who also won medals at that competition. In mid-2010 he also competed at the famous meeting in Götzis, Austria, where he long-jumped 7.63 metres, which remains his best result in that discipline.

Rise to Prominence

He made his real breakthrough in senior competition in 2011. At the World Championships in Daegu, South Korea, he finished sixth with 8,256 points and set a new national record. That result also secured him the qualifying standard for the Olympic Games in London. By his own account, he had earlier broken a national record that was 21 years old.

The 2012 season followed, with the European Championships in Helsinki. In the decathlon he finished fourth with 8,154 points. He later explained that only about 50 points separated him from a medal, which made it one of his most painful results. In Helsinki he also threw the javelin 59.98 metres, which remains his personal best.

The London 2012 Olympic Games

At the Olympic Games in London in 2012, he arrived as a serious candidate for a high placing, but did not finish the competition. According to what he later recounted, he suffered a migraine attack that day and woke up in hospital. Olympic records list him as a competitor who did not finish the decathlon.

This experience remained one of the hardest of his career. Dudaš always stressed that the Olympics are the greatest goal of any athlete, which made the misfortune all the greater.

Greatest Achievements

Heptathlon Bronze in Gothenburg 2013

He won his first senior medal at the European Indoor Championships in Gothenburg in March 2013. He took bronze in the heptathlon with 6,099 points, which was also a new national record. That same year he also recorded his best marks in the 1,000 metres (2:39.04) and the indoor high jump (2.08 metres).

National Record at the Moscow World Championships

In August 2013 he competed at the World Championships in Moscow. With 8,275 points he set a new national decathlon record and finished 14th. That result, achieved on 11 August 2013, remained his personal best until the end of his career. The winner of that event was the American decathlete Ashton Eaton, with 8,809 points. During the same competition, Dudaš also ran his best 100 metres, 10.67 seconds.

Injury and Comeback

Problems with his Achilles tendon followed. Because of an operation he underwent in Finland, he missed competition in 2014. Sources differ on the exact timing of the procedure, as some give 2014 and others point to a news report from April 2015. Regardless, he returned very quickly and in 2015 won gold at the Balkan Championships in Pitești with 7,720 points.

European Bronze in Amsterdam 2016

He reached the peak of his career in July 2016 at the European Championships in Amsterdam. With 8,153 points he won the bronze medal in the decathlon. He achieved this despite injuries and an illness that struck him just before the competition.

After the event he said that it was not just his medal, but also the medal of his family and the Athletics Federation of Serbia. He added that the medal secured him national recognition and a pension. That same year he was named Serbia’s best athlete.

That season he also met the standard for the Rio Olympic Games, reaching the points requirement of 8,100. In the decathlon he also posted good individual results, including 2.04 metres in the high jump.

The Rio 2016 Olympic Games

In Rio de Janeiro in 2016, Dudaš arrived as a European bronze medallist in the decathlon. Unfortunately, he once again did not finish the competition. According to him, an elbow injury, with a rupture in three places, had troubled him since the start of the season. He could have continued with the throws, but that would have endangered his career and might have led to surgery.

He decided to withdraw. He later said that, had he been placed better, he would probably have taken the risk, but that the decision was very hard. In Rio’s Olympic village he also had an unusual experience: with his national team colleague Ivan Ristić, he joked about the American swimmer Michael Phelps, whom they first saw only from behind and did not recognise.

The 2017 European Indoor Championships in Belgrade

In March 2017, Dudaš competed at the European Indoor Championships in Belgrade, in front of a home crowd. In the heptathlon he cleared 5.10 metres in the pole vault, which is his personal best in that discipline (his previous best was 4.80), and thereby came back into medal contention.

In the final event, the 1,000 metres, he tried to catch his Czech rival. He later recounted that his legs gave out a hundred metres from the finish, that he fell, got up and finished the race, but was disqualified for stepping off the track. He said the competition felt like a medal to him, because he had never gone so far to the limit.

The 2017 World Championships in London

That same year he also competed at the World Championships in London, where in the decathlon he recorded his best results of the season in the 100 metres, the long jump, the high jump and the 400 metres. However, he did not complete the competition.

End of His Career

On 26 February 2022, at a ceremony in the hall of his club AK Vojvodina, Dudaš announced his retirement from competitive athletics. It came after fifteen years of competition and a total of 25 years in athletics. He closed his farewell with the words “Athletics, I love you. Thank you for everything.”

He said he had not yet defined his plans for the future, but that he had started several projects. Above all, he wanted to see what life looks like without the pressure of competition and injuries. He also explained that he could now take up more extreme sports.

Work Off the Track and in Sports Administration

Besides sport, Dudaš also developed in other fields. In Novi Sad he started “NS Runners”, the city’s first running club, in which some members ran their first marathon with his help. He also became a member of the Serbian Armed Forces Sports Unit, where he worked with cadets. During the 2020 lockdown, he also organised online workouts for his followers on social media.

After the end of his career he served as sports director of the Serbian Athletics Federation, as well as director of the Belgrade Indoor and Serbia Athletics meetings. He resigned from those posts on 6 February 2025. In an Instagram post he said that he could no longer support the values by which the Federation is guided and that he “does not accept athletics without transparency, freedom and integrity”.

Private Life

Dudaš is a Novi Sad native and says that Novi Sad is for him a way and style of life. His family and friends live in the city, and in interviews he regularly stresses how much returning home means to him. During his career he travelled a great deal: by his own account, in 2016 he spent 252 days away from Novi Sad.

He likes other sports too. He admits he plays tennis well, and in the Novi Sad Fair hall, where he trained, he occasionally exchanged shots with tennis players, among them Filip Krajinović. Still, his biggest hobby is fishing, which he regards as a mental rest after the season.

In winter he trained in the Novi Sad Fair hall, and he travelled several times to South Africa for training camps, where he trained together with his friend and fellow decathlete Tomas van der Pletsen (Thomas van der Plaetsen). There is no publicly confirmed information about other details of his private life.

Interesting Facts

• He valued no medal more than his junior bronze from 2008, which he called the most sincere.
• Among decathletes, as he puts it, there is friendship, because a two-day competition of ten events leaves no room for tension.
• In the 2017 pole vault in Belgrade, he improved his personal best by as much as 30 centimetres.
• Although he described himself as a modest guy, he often emphasised the importance of education and of life after sport.
• As a child he had no idols, because, as he says, he did not want to glorify those against whom he might one day compete.
• In January 2021, in a conversation with the portal 021, he urged fellow citizens to protect their mental health.

Awards and Recognitions

Dudaš has received a number of awards for his sporting achievements. According to available sources, he was named the best young athlete of the Balkans (2011), Vojvodina’s sportsman of the year (2011) and Novi Sad’s sportsman of the year from 2010 to 2013. After the Amsterdam medal in 2016, he was named Serbia’s best athlete. He is also a recipient of the May Award for 2017.

His medal tally consists of five world and European medals:

• bronze at the World Junior Championships in the decathlon (Bydgoszcz 2008)
• bronze at the European Under-23 Championships (Kaunas 2009)
• bronze at the European Under-23 Championships (Ostrava 2011)
• bronze at the European Indoor Championships in the heptathlon (Gothenburg 2013)
• bronze at the European Championships in the decathlon (Amsterdam 2016)

Legacy and Influence

Mihail Dudaš remains one of the most successful Serbian combined events athletes in history. His national records in the decathlon (8,275) and heptathlon (6,099), set in 2013, still stand, and some of his earlier results broke records that were decades old. Alongside Ivana Španović and other Novi Sad athletes, he helped Novi Sad earn its reputation as an athletics city.

His path also showed how important it is to persevere after injuries and setbacks. After missed Olympic Games and surgery, he won a European medal, and after his career he stayed active through a running club, work with cadets and sports administration. In conversations he often urged young people to love what they do, because success will follow.

Biography – Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Mihail Dudaš?

Mihail Dudaš is a Serbian athlete, decathlete and heptathlete from Novi Sad, national record holder in both events and bronze medallist at the 2016 European Championships.

When and where was Mihail Dudaš born?

He was born on 1 November 1989 in Novi Sad, according to World Athletics and Olympedia. Some sources give a different date, so the data differ.

How tall is Mihail Dudaš?

According to most sources he is 183 centimetres tall, while Olympedia gives 184 centimetres.

What is Mihail Dudaš’s personal best in the decathlon?

His personal and national decathlon record is 8,275 points. He set it on 11 August 2013 at the World Championships in Moscow.

Which medals has Mihail Dudaš won?

He won five bronze medals: at the 2008 World Junior Championships, at the European Under-23 Championships in 2009 and 2011, at the 2013 European Indoor Championships in the heptathlon, and at the 2016 European Championships in the decathlon.

Did Mihail Dudaš compete at the Olympic Games?

Yes, he competed at the Olympic Games in London in 2012 and Rio de Janeiro in 2016. At both Games he did not finish the competition, the first time because of a migraine and the second because of an elbow injury.

When did Mihail Dudaš end his career?

He ended his career at the end of February 2022, after fifteen years of competition and 25 years in athletics.

What does Mihail Dudaš do today?

After his career he worked as sports director of the Serbian Athletics Federation, a post he left in February 2025. He also started the running club “NS Runners” in Novi Sad.

Where did Mihail Dudaš study?

He completed a master’s degree in corporate management at University College London on a Chevening scholarship.

Is Mihail Dudaš married?

Information about his marital status has not been publicly confirmed by reliable sources.

Conclusion

Mihail Dudaš is an athlete who went from a boy in Novi Sad’s Old Town to a European podium in the most demanding discipline in athletics. Medals from junior, younger senior and senior championships, along with national records in the decathlon and heptathlon, place him among the best in the history of Serbian athletics.

Despite injuries and missing out at the Olympic Games, he never gave up on his goal. After his career he kept growing through education, a running club, work with cadets and sports administration. His biography remains an example of perseverance and versatility.