Young athletes competing in the European Youth Olympic Festival and Cadet European Championships 2025 are twice as lucky as both events are to be held in Skopje, North Macedonia. To prepare for these two prime events and ensure the care of our delegations is a top priority, EJU Vice President, Catarina RODRIGUES has been on site for inspection this week alongside the Head of Event Management and Broadcasting, Tibor JANITY.
We started the visit with a meeting at the headquarters of the National Olympic Committee, with the President of the NOC, Daniel DIMEVSKI, Sport Director of the NOC, Vladimir BOGOEVSKI also the CEO and deputy CEO of the EYOF local organisation team as well as representative of North Macedonia Judo Federation. It was important for us to understand and start the process of the organisation of EYOF and the concept of the event. We could see that there will be the biggest number of sports ever in EYOF, new ones including shooting and taekwondo.
Though it is very exciting that the EYOF is growing in participants and disciplines, the focus for this trip was of course judo, and given the status that event holds for the sport, Vice President Rodrigues was very pleased with the location.
Overall what is important for judo is that we have the best venue. When we were here in August we already talked with the technical director of the NOC, explaining our concept, for some European organisations the event is not so important, but for the European Judo Union, we take it very seriously, for us it’s like a European Championships. We also make investments, bringing a big team including the media and streaming team to help them, and I think this is the reward, to have the best venue and it will be the same place that hosts the Cadet European Championships.
Later we will of course progress with preparations of EYOF but the main purpose of the trip was to prepare for the Cadet European Championships, after this meeting we visited the hotels which are very good quality, we also visited the venue but knew this from the cup event. We needed to adjust some logistics and introduce some new areas for the European Championships and they will find a good solution.
The following morning, they met with the Ministry of Sport for North Macedonia, Borko RISTOVSKI,
It was a very fruitful meeting, the Sport Minister is new in North Macedonia and Mr Borko Ristovski had the chance to share his vision and how he wants to develop and increase the results of North Macedonia sport. It was clear that judo is one of the top five priority sports for him, he has a huge respect for the President of the North Macedonia Federation, Vladimir TRPANOSKI. We discussed ways to develop judo in many ways in the country, not only with the cup event or European Championships and other international events, but with long range projects including Judo in Schools and judo in the military. In the end it was a very good and very open meeting.
This feeling was concurred by President Trpanoski,
These two days we have had very productive meetings, full with positive energy in all the teams. We are grateful for the support which we have from the European Judo Union, Vice President Ms Rodrigues and from Mr Janity. After this visit I can say that together we will have excellent organisation in June. We are staying together in the next projects like one family, the judo family.
MKD Judo Federation President
Author: Thea Cowen