“Sport in Focus” was the theme of this year’s photo contest organized by the Delegation of the European Union in Serbia in partnership with the Olympic Committee of Serbia, the Paralympic Committee of Serbia, the French Institute in Serbia, Politikin Zabavnik and Erasmus Student Network Serbia. The best photos will be available in the coming days at the European House, at the exhibition unveiled by the EU Ambassador to Serbia, Emanuele Giaufret.

A seven-member jury selected three winning photos from the nearly 400 submitted to the competition, and 19 of the best photos were presented at the exhibition.

Dragan Leleš won the first place in the competition “Sport in Focus” for the photo “Marathon 5”, second place went to David Damnjanović with the photo “Thirtieth of  a Second”, and Mina Delić won the third place with the photo “Walking Target”.

The authors of the three best photos received vouchers from Giaufret for the purchase of electronic equipment in the dinar equivalent value of 1,000, 500 and 300 euros. Also, the first prizes-winning photo will be published in Politikin Zabavnik.

“I would like to thank all partners, this year is an Olympic year, sport was in focus. We all followed the OG, PG with great attention, many photographers went to Paris to photograph the Games. Here we can see the photos they took there, as well as photos taken by photographers all over Serbia. This year, we are focusing on two things, sports and creativity”, Giaufret said.

He added that the photos testify to the great creativity of the photographers who took them.

“We can see various things on them, the effort of athletes, moments of joy and happiness, the team spirit that is present. They managed to capture the moments and share them with all of us who weren’t there. These photos show how these creatives managed to create art. I congratulate everyone who participated in this competition”, said the EU Ambassador to Serbia.

Jury member, Andrej Isaković, thanked the organizers for the idea and added that he hopes there will be similar competitions in the future.

“Out of 400 received photos, in several rounds of judging, we finally made a choice. I hope you like it and that it represents the idea of the contest, congratulations to everyone”, Isaković said. The best sports photos taken  in Serbia or during the Olympic Games in Paris are the basis of the “Sport in Focus” photo contest.

The jury consisted of Agence France-Presse photographer Andrej Isaković, judoka and representative of the Olympic Committee of Serbia Marica Perišić, Bojan Jaćimović from the Paralympic Committee of Serbia, Caroline Sotta from the French Institute of Serbia, Aleksandar Kelić from the Faculty of Applied Arts in Belgrade, Igor Rill from Politikin Zabavnik and Dimitrije Prokopović from the Erasmus Student Network Serbia.

The three winning photos, as well as the 16 shortlisted photos, will be exhibited at the European House in Belgrade, and then in Novi Sad and Niš.