Vesna Misanović is a Bosnian

Bosnians

Bosnians are people who reside in, or come from, Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the modern state definition a Bosnian can be anyone who holds citizenship of the state. This includes, but is not limited to, members of the constituent ethnic groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosniaks, Bosnian Serbs and...

 chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 player who holds the FIDE Woman Grandmaster title.

She was winner of the first ever medal for Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bosnia and Herzegovina , sometimes called Bosnia-Herzegovina or simply Bosnia, is a country in Southern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula. Bordered by Croatia to the north, west and south, Serbia to the east, and Montenegro to the southeast, Bosnia and Herzegovina is almost landlocked, except for the...

 at the European Team Championship

European Team Championship

The European Team Championship is an international team chess event, eligible for the participation of European nations whose chess federations are located in zones 1.1 to 1.9...

 in Debrecin 1992. It was an individual silver medal for best rating performance and result at first board. Before that, she won two bronze medals by playing for the Yugoslav national team at the Thessaloniki 1988 Chess Olympiad

Chess Olympiad

The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams from all over the world compete against each other. The event is organised by FIDE, which selects the host nation.-Birth of the Olympiad:The first Olympiad was unofficial...

. The medals were for overall team performance and for her individual result on fourth board. In total, she participated at six Chess Olympiads, two times for Yugoslavia (4th board in Thessaloniki 1988 and 2nd board in Novi Sad 1990) and four times for Bosnia and Herzegovina (1st board in Manila 1992, Moscow 1994

31st Chess Olympiad

The 31st Chess Olympiad, organized by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs and comprising an open and women's tournament, took place between November 30 and December 17, 1994, in Moscow, Russia.- Chess competition :...

, Elista 1998

33rd Chess Olympiad

The 33rd Chess Olympiad, organized by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs and comprising an open and women's tournament, took place between September 26 and October 13, 1998, in Elista, Kalmykia, . In the open tournament there were 110 teams, and in the women's, 72 teams.-Chess City:The...

 and Istanbul 2000).

34th Chess Olympiad

The 34th Chess Olympiad, organized by the Fédération Internationale des Échecs and comprising an open and women's tournament, took place between October 28 and November 12, 2000, in Istanbul, Turkey.- Chess competition :...

Her first big domestic success also occurred in 1988, when she became Yugoslav Chess Champion

Yugoslav Chess Championship

The Yugoslav Chess Championship is a tournament with great tradition, held to determine the national champion. It was a very strong event especially in the period 1945–1991, when it represented players from six federal republics, today independent countries....

.

In individual, international competition, she shared 7-9th places at the Kishinev Interzonal

Interzonal

Interzonal chess tournaments were tournaments organized by FIDE, the World Chess Federation, and were a stage in the triennial World Chess Championship cycle.- Zonal tournaments :...

 Tournament 1995 and qualified for the Candidates Tournament

Candidates Tournament

The Candidates Tournament is a chess tournament organized by the world chess federation FIDE since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship...

, a pre-cursor to the Women's World Chess Championship

Women's World Chess Championship

The Women's World Chess Championship is played to determine the women's world champion in chess. Like the World Chess Championship, it is administered by FIDE....

.

The outbreak of the Bosnian war

Bosnian War

The Bosnian War or the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between April 1992 and December 1995. The war involved several sides...

 found her in Slovenia

Slovenia

Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...

. After two years of struggling, she managed to return to Sarajevo as a journalist. During the Siege of Sarajevo

Siege of Sarajevo

The Siege of Sarajevo is the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare. Serb forces of the Republika Srpska and the Yugoslav People's Army besieged Sarajevo, the capital city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996 during the Bosnian War.After Bosnia...

, she managed to continue her career, using the Sarajevo Tunnel

Sarajevo Tunnel

During the Siege of Sarajevo during Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995, the Sarajevo Tunnel was constructed by the besieged citizens of Sarajevo in order to link the city of Sarajevo, which was entirely cut-off by Serbian forces, with the Bosnian-held territory on the other end of the supposedly...

to go to tournaments and to return.

For her sport results, she was twice selected as the best sportswoman of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The readers of the woman magazines "Una" and "Zena 21" voted her an award as “Woman of the year”.

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