 Later in the year, he competed at the European Championships in Rome and was the biggest gold medal contender as many times in the future.There he won his first major medal when produced leap of 8.04 m to finish at second place, beaten by Soviet Valeriy Podluzhny.Stekic had phenomenal season in 1975, highlighted with new European Record in the long-jump on 25 July at Montreal where he produced second best jump of 8.45 m in the history, only behind Beamon's World Record.