The winner received his awards from President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović.
The winner of the 301th Sinj Alka which was held today is Tino Radanović who in three races scored seven points, report Jutarnji List and Index.hr on August 7, 2016.
The winner received a special gift from President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, the patron of the Sinj Alka, who gave him a sword and a golden ring with the Croatian coat of arms. Tino Radanović was born in 1981 in Sinj. He debuted in the competition in 2006, and a year later he became the winner of the 292th Sinj Alka.
Today, 17 knights took place in the historical competition. Several thousand spectators attended the event, including many government officials, mayors, church dignitaries and ambassadors. After the competition, the President gave a speech in which she talked about the current events in Croatia.
She said that she expected an ambitious new Croatian government which will be able to define and resolutely implement development programmes. The President added that she expected that the focus of the upcoming electoral campaign will be the everyday problems of Croatian citizens – employment, demographic policies, financial security of families, workers’ rights, agricultural policies, balanced regional development and tax policies.
From participants in the upcoming campaign she expects full responsibility, and hopes that the campaign will be free of historical discussions about the controversies of the World War II and the post-war period.
The President said that only now we can truly understand the meaning of the miraculous victory of Sinj which took place in 1715, just like the future will fully demonstrate the historical importance of the operation Storm and the Homeland War. “Homeland War is the foundation of the Croatian state. Therefore, it is on the winning legacy of the Homeland War that we must build the future of our country”, stressed the President.
She concluded that Alka demonstrated the way in which the past can and should be an inspiration for the future, because it reminds us of spiritual and moral values that have shaped Croatian identity.
In addition to being a historical and tourist event, the Sinj Alka is also an important political event which regularly gathers many prominent politicians, who use this opportunity to promote themselves. Given that elections are just one month away, almost everybody was there this year, with an important exception of SDP president Zoran Milanović, who regularly avoids such events.
