With a score of seven points, debutant Mihovil Zupa is the winner of the 306th Sinjska Alka lancing tournament, held in that town in the hinterland of the coastal city of Split on Sunday.

Competing in this year’s tournament were 17 horsemen, including four debutants, and attending were, among others, President Zoran Milanovic, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandrokovic.

The Sinjska Alka tournament commemorates a victory over 60,000 Ottoman soldiers on 14 August 1715 by 700 Croatian defenders of Sinj, about 30 kilometres inland from Split.

The final of this three-day competition is held on the first weekend in August. The event features period-clad horsemen riding at full gallop and aiming their lances at an iron ring, called the alka, which is suspended from a rope above the race track.

The Sinjska Alka tournament was inscribed on UNESCO’s world intangible cultural heritage list in 2010.