After a great deal of thinking on what should be the next topic in our web portal, and being inspired with the fantastic stories about the Serbian figure skating champion and the “star” of the marketing campaign of a local telecommunications company Leona Rogic, we decided to announce in this text one of the rare major important figure skating competitions, held for the 11th time in our country - “Skate Helena Europa Cup”.
For all the 1990s events, figure skating has become significantly neglected in Serbia, although there are some prominent professionals in this sports area who became known throughout former Yugoslavia. However, nearly all of them either remained in Slovenia at the beginning of the conflict, or fled to some distant countries, far from hunger and poverty at home.

Figure skating, as all individual sports, is extremely demanding in all sorts of ways. You need an appropriate practice field (ice rink, in this case), and appropriate equipment as well, which may prove to be extremely costly, considering the prices of professional equipment. This is why our Leona from the beginning of the text should be seen with the image of Novak Djokovic on ice, and we should all be so proud of all her success and results at all times, because this young lady and this elegant and demanding sport indeed deserve it.

This competition is named after Helena Pajovic, a Belgrade-born figure skater who, shortly after achieving significant results at the world level, died in a tragic car accident on her way back from the international competition in Israel in 2000. At this competition Helena won her first and unfortunately, the last bronze medal at world competitions. In 2001 the Serbian figure skating organization set up a memorial competition “Helena Pajovic Cup” which was subsequently renamed “Skate Helena Europa Cup” after the changes in the European cup format.

The 11th Skate Helena Europa Cup will be held from January 23-27 at the Pionir Ice Hall (the official name is Aleksandar Nikolic Hall).
This year’s cup will host 320 skaters from 23 countries world-wide, which is important both for this very sport and the organizers of the event.

The official opening and draw will be held on 23 January in the hotel “Zira”, while the competition program will be held until and including on 27 January.

We from Novi apartmani web portal wholeheartedly recommend to all of you to take a bit of your time here in Belgrade and enjoy the beauty and grace of the skaters’ figures, because we know you’ll be amazed. Do support young Leona and all the athletes doing this demanding sport. If you choose to stay in our apartment Pionir, you’ll be only a couple of minutes away from this event and you’ll have no excuse not to have a cup of tea and enjoy this fantastic competition.