December 18, 2018 – Following the press release titled “Tour of Croatia Continues! The Fifth Tour of Croatia will be held in April 2019,” sent to the media on December 17, 2018, Vladimir Miholjević, Managing Director of Top Sport Events d.o.o., sharply responded, saying the statement is false and misleads the public.
Miholjević thus corrected the information from Monday’s release.
“Tour of Croatia 2019 has nothing to do with Tour of Croatia, which is by my company Top Sport Events d.o.o., in which I initiated and organized as the sole owner in 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Except for the 13 letters contained in the ‘Tour of Croatia’ title, the new race has nothing to do with the previous releases of Tour of Croatia. It is true that the name of the race was not registered with the Intellectual Property Office, which was unfortunately used by former associate Ivan Črnjarić, who in May this year protected the name ‘Tour of Croatia’ as his private property. Unfortunately, this is my naive failure because I thought from the very beginning that everyone should share this race, and during the first four years of my organization, the Tour of Croatia has won numerous awards under my organization, it was declared the sporting event of the year and the most beautiful postcard of Croatia in the world.
The claim of the new organizer to be the 5th edition of the race is a deception and lie because they (the new organizer company Thorax d.o.o.) reported the race as the first release, which it can only be because all the content and results of the previous four versions undeniably belong to Top Sport Events. The new organizer has just the name, 13 letters, but not the experience, organization, knowledge, awards and so on. In fact, the new organizer has never organized any bicycle race and Thorax d.o.o. which appears as the new organizer, according to official data, is registered in the Court Registry for production and fashion design.
HBS President Tomislav Zadro’s statement is most scandalous, because Mr. Zadro was familiar with the entire case because of HBS’s reaction to the sports inspection. A comment in which Mr. Zadro’s previous achievements and the experience of the TOC ‘established as a top international bicycle race’ is associated with the new organizers who do not have any knowledge of cycling races nor cooperation with HBS is unprofessional and sad to say by someone who is the head of a national alliance.
The ‘Tour of Croatia’ case is in court.”
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