Eleven teams comprising 110 athletes from Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Finland, Germany, Montenegro, Poland, Russia, Serbia and Slovakia recently descended on the city of Zrenjanin in Serbia for the Special Olympics European Unified Volleyball Tournament!
The tournament, which is one of the flagship events celebrating Special Olympics 50th anniversary, was welcomed with open arms in Serbia. Vanja Udovicic, Serbia’s Minister of Youth and Sport and Vanja Grbic, gold-medal winning Olympian and Special Olympics Global Ambassador, were among the guests at the Opening Ceremony. The national news media also got enthusiastically behind it—on 7 June, journalists on every national TV station wore Special Olympics 50th anniversary pins and sent good wishes for the tournament!
Filip Paunovic, a Special Olympics Serbia athlete, relished it all. “For me, it’s super,” he said, “I love being with my friends … and I love to play volleyball!”