At the start of the race, the Alka Duke Ante Vucic thanked all in attendance, including President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and other distinguished guests, for their support to this traditional annual event.
The spectacle attracted several thousand people, including senior state officials, local government leaders, church dignitaries, foreign diplomats, and public figures.
President Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, the patron of the tournament, presented the winner with a sabre and a gold ring with the Croatian coat of arms and his attendant with a flintlock pistol and a silver ring.
In her address at the end of the race, Grabar-Kitarovic said that this tournament reminded the Croatians about the responsibility they had towards the homeland.
We, who can now live in peace in the present-day Croatia, are supposed to demonstrate that responsibility in tackling the challenges of our times, the president said.
The Sinjska Alka tournament commemorates a victory by 700 Croatian defenders of Sinj, about 30 kilometres inland from the southern coastal city of Split, against 60,000 Ottoman soldiers under Serasker Mehmed Pasha Celic on August 14, 1715. The final of this three-day competition is held on the first Sunday in August. The event features period-clad horsemen riding at full gallop and aiming their lances at an iron ring, called the alka, which is suspended from a rope above the race track.
The Sinjska Alka tournament was inscribed on UNESCO's world intangible cultural heritage list in 2010.