Bikic was congratulated on his victory by the Alka knights' acting duke Ivan Cikara, who recalled that the tournament was held to commemorate the victory over the Turks which the residents of the Sinj and Cetina region, north of the southern coastal city of Split, achieved in 1715.
Cikara also quoted France's military ordinary as saying he admired the Croats because they had values which Europe was losing but could not live without. Cikara added the Alka tournament was a contribution to the cultural heritage of Croatia as well as Europe and the world.
Attending the tournament were about 10,000 people, including numerous foreigners vacationing in Croatia as well as representatives of civilian and military authorities, political parties and the Church, including Deputy Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor, several members of parliament, several ambassadors, and retired Bosnian Croat General Tihomir Blaskic, recently released from the detention unit of the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
For the third consecutive year the tournament was held under the auspices of the people of Sinj and the Cetina region.