Petar Skansi

As a basketball player, Petar Skansi was a member of the Jugoplastika Split and Pesaro teams, and was a key member of the first great Yugoslavian team of the late-1960s/early-70s. He won a gold medal at the 1970 World Championships in Ljubljana, having won an Olympic silver at Mexico in 1968.

Known as “Pero”, Skansi also had a long career in Italy as a coach, with Pesaro (winners of the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1983), Fabriano, Venezia, Roma, Treviso, and Fortitudo Bologna. He also coached Yugoslavia at the 1979 European Championships in Torino, before returning to club coaching. With Treviso Benetton in 1992, he won his first Italian title and followed that with an Italian Cup triumph. However, the team, which contained the great Toni Kukoč, surprisingly lost the European Champions Cup final to Limoges.

Skansi’s career highlight as coach was in taking Croatia to the silver medal at the 1992 Olympics with a team that contained such great players as Drazen Petrovic, Kukoč, and Dino Rada. They were only beaten by the USA Dream Team, in both a group game and in the final. Back in Italy, in 1998 Skansi’s Fortitudo were just beaten for the title by another Bologna team, Virtus.

Skansi retired in 2004 after coaching stints at PAOK Thessaloniki, Split, and Krka Novo Mesto. He retired to devote himself to his favourite passions of the sea and sailing boats. He passed away in April 2022 at his home in Ljubljana after a long illness.