Ceremonially, as befits, in the presence of high-ranking and respected dignitaries, the Serbian judoka performed their first training in the National Training Centre in Kosutnjak. Led by the President of the Serbian Judo Federation and Serbia’s ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ivan TODOROV, Serbian judoka had the special honour of starting their training with the President of the European Judo Union, Dr TOTH Laszlo. As special guest, Toth offered some words to the elite athletes;
Dear judoka, dear Ivan, President of the Serbian Judo Federation, dear Mr. Bratić and Mr. Vujko, and dear trainers, dear judo family. It is a great honour and pleasure to be with you today at the opening of the National Training Centre in Belgrade. I am happy because I see many athletes on the tatami and a great chance for their preparations here at the National Training Centre. I would like to congratulate the JSerbian Judo Federation and the Government of Serbia, which supported this idea. This is a nice gift for the judoka who are going to the Olympic Games, when they see how the Federation made an effort to provide them with this magnificent space. I am convinced that the Serbian judo family as well as guests from Europe will use this training centre. I wish you all good health and good luck in your further preparations for the Olympic Games.
Thank you once again for the invitation and congratulations once again, this is a really nice space and I hope it will be able to be used as an Olympic training centre as well as for other events within the European Judo Union. Congratulations!
Todorov greeted his distinguished guests and on behalf of the Serbian Judo Federation, thanked them for attending the opening on this historic day.
Today, the dreams of all of us who practice judo came true. Our lifelong dream was to one day get a training centre. Today it came true for us, we did the first training and it is a historic day for judo, but also an incentive and a new motivation that will make our judoka progress even more. With this speech, I first of all want to thank the President of the Republic of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, who visited us when we discussed the training centre and the importance of martial arts back in 2017. The result of that conversation is exactly what we see today. I want to wish our Olympic team every success at the Games in Paris. This generation has taken a historic step, which is the placement at the Olympic Games in the mixed team, which is an impressive result considering that they are among the 12 best countries.
Author: Serbian Judo Federation
Author: Thea Cowen