Berbić: Sarajevo Grand Prix will be recognized as the Balkan Championship

We must be sensitive in the times we live in, we entered this all a bit more sensitively, but the campaign has started. We will collect some funds to help flood victims, but we will define that before the race itself, said Zlatko Berbić, president of the Cycling Federation of BiH, about the first cycling race Sarajevo Grand Prix, which will be held on June 22, for the BiH news agency Patria (NAP).

- The campaign is underway in Serbia and Croatia, and in the promotional video, Dino Merlin and Claudia Carceroni de Carvahlo, multiple world cycling champions, invite everyone to come to Sarajevo. The race through Serbia has moved its date due to the one in Sarajevo, and instead of the original finish on Sunday, it will finish on Saturday so that all teams can join in Sarajevo – said Berbić.

He pointed out that there will be about 25 teams, and the significance of the race is also in the fact that it will be recognized as the Balkan Championship for this year, and the official marketing campaign began on June 1.

- Everything remains the same in both the sporting and exhibition parts. We will do something appropriate for the times we live in, and help a kindergarten in Doboj, Maglaj, Orašje – said Berbić for NAP.

Otherwise, the first SGP cycling race starts at 11:00 AM on June 22 in front of the City Administration in East Sarajevo, and the director of the Tour de France, Christian Prudhomme, and ten champions of this biggest cycling race, who have supported this project, as well as the president of the European Cycling Union, have confirmed their arrival.

Competitors will cover a distance of 140 km through 14 municipalities. Otherwise, SGP 2014 is part of the project "Sarajevo – Heart of Europe", which includes nine countries that wanted to join the ceremony commemorating the beginning of World War I.

As Berbić previously told Patria, the race is the most populous project, because besides the sporting aspect, it also has a recreational character. The goal is to gather around 5,000 cyclists who will be dressed the same in recognizable jerseys with the inscription "Sarajevo Grand Prix".

Otherwise, this project has had the support of the French Embassy in BiH and Ambassador Roland Gilles from the very beginning, writes Patria.