As the sixth Grand Prix of the season and fifth edition of the event in Croatia the level of the competition will be very high as many World and Olympic medalists are expected, including, in the men's divisions, the Azeri pair of Rustam Orujov and Elmar Gasimov, both silver medallists in Rio, and Elkhan Mammadov, World Champion and Toth Krisztian, World Silver Medalist and in the women's divisions, Nekoda Smythe-Davis GBR , bronze medalist in Budapest at the end of the summer and Laura Vargas-Koch GER , bronze medalist in Rio, who returns to competition after a year away from the tatami.
The French giant considers Zagreb to be an unmissable event in his preparation for the next Openweight World Championship which will take place in Marrakesh, Morocco, in November and which could see him win a 10th world title.
Marius Vizer, officially opened the official draw at the Westin hotel, in downtown Zagreb: "Good afternoon to everyone. We can see here that this award was really deserved. I wish you all the best with the organisation and I wish good luck to all the participants. Sanda Corak, who was accompanied by Mr. After the successful World Championships in Budapest I would like to congratulate to all medal winners but also to all the participants. Most of these top athletes we could see in Zagreb at our earlier events and we are sure that some of this year athletes we will see in Tokyo It helps the Croatian economy.
The event is held in the beautiful city of zagreb and people from outside can discover Croatia. It's good for the tourism for instance. Because of the growth of our federation and because of the great work that we have been doing, we have more than more competitors this year compared to last year. Among all the participating countries, 16 are coming from outside of Europe, which is extraordinary.
For the Croatian Judo Federation, the Grand Prix is actually the major event of the season and crowns a very good year, as the President of the Federation, Dr.
