LET THE YOUTH GAMES BEGIN!

This is definitely the youth sports month, and the pages of the most beautiful and most spectacular sports fairy tales are written by Youth Sports Games in Novi Sad which are, with the presence of numerous guests from Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, officially opened for the entire region.

By taking the oath of friendship and burning the torch of friendship, the message of peace, friendship, tolerance and communion was sent and the beginning of another excellent season of Youth Sports Games was celebrated. The ceremony began with the anthem of the Republic of Serbia performed by the choir of the “Jovan Jovanović Zmaj” Gymnasium from Novi Sad. After the performance of Haos Animatori and the ISON choir, the ambassadors of the Games, Johannes Hahn, European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, ambassadors of the Games Predrag Mijatović, Nemanja Matić and Luka Modrić, as well as Tibor Navračić, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport addressed the audience via video-messages.

In the name of the sportsman and sportswomen, the oath was taken by Lana Batez, talented volleyball player and daughter of legendary volleyball player Vladimir Batez.

“I am extremely happy for today’s day. I must thank all relevant persons, people and institutions which help the organisation of the Games in Serbia for the sixth year in a row. I am proud about the fact that these Games gather more than 80,000 children and I would like to especially thank the president of the Republic of Serbia. And of course, special thanks go to Novi Sad, the Mayor Miloš and his people who were available these days”, Zdravko Marić, the creator of the Games said.

The Mayor of Novi Sad, Miloš Vučević did not hide his pride for the fact that Novi Sad is the city where the new season of one of the greatest manifestation of the amateur sport in Europe is born.

“You cannot be dissatisfied when you see several hundreds of pupils and young people for whom the Youth Sports Games are organised. For me, it is natural that the first address for such a great competition is Novi Sad, as European Youth Capital” – this is the part of the speech of the first man of Novi Sad.

The most hectic moment of the opening of the Youth Sports Games was when the young hopes of our sport, Minja Osmajić volleyball player and Marko Beljanski, the athlete brought the torch of friendship and when, with the sounds of fanfare and confetti the torch of friendship of Youth Sports Games lighted up not only Novi Sad but all of the region. During the upcoming months, the torch will go around the cities across the region ennobling the childhoods of those who all of us like the most.