Equestrian races, shoulder throwing, bellows jumping, tug-of-war, piston-pulling, pole climbing, sack race, egg and spoon race, long jump and high jump – these are all competitions that took place in Nevesinje until now organized as many as 148 times.
The Nevesinje Olympics is the oldest sports and cultural manifestation in the area of Eastern Herzegovina, it is even older than the modern Olympic Games. It has been held since the 19th century and gathers thousands of visitors from all over Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and the region.
French travel writers record that the first races were organized back in 1886.
And after the Second World War, this became a multi-day event. In the 1970s, the Olympics were held in front of 30,000 spectators.
“Buses used to come from Sarajevo, Belgrade, and today it is a slightly modified manifestation that preserves precisely those old sports and is enriched with some additional cultural, touristic, artistic content… It is no longer a one-day or two-day manifestation, but it is a conference of tradition and chivalry that lasts for several days”, Gragovac points out.
The tradition was interrupted during the war in the period from 1992 to 1994, when, according to the organizers, messages of peace were sent from the Olympics, so after the war, athletes of all nations began to arrive here. Even today, the tradition is kept from being forgotten. Bratacki lug, the vast Nevesinjsko polje of about 17 hectares, every year in August becomes a real Olympic fighting ground in both old and modern disciplines.
Visitors from the region, lovers of folk customs and traditional sports skills follow all the competitions closely and cheer for their favorites, and the most frequent visitors are the Nevesinjenatives who plan their annual vacations for this Olympics.
“We came here after 35 years, I was little, now I brought my son. My uncle and father used to come, they had a horse Misko, he was the champion of the Nevesinje Olympiad, eight times in a row and my uncle received the title of knight. We went back to our childhood in some beautiful times”, admitted Aleksandar Kovacevic, a visitor from Belgrade, N1 reports.
E.Dz.
