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This is the highest award of the Municipality of Ljubljana in the field of sports, which can be received by amateur sports workers, athletes, sports educators, professional sports workers and sports journalists for outstanding sports achievements in the past year or for successful work over a long period of time.

 

Ajda Novak was awarded the Marjan Rožanc Award for outstanding sports achievements in the Ljubljana town hall. The 29-year-old member of the Ljubljana canoe club, who has been competing at the highest level for more than a decade, this year became the first Slovenian kayaker to win an European Championship medal in the new Olympic discipline - extreme slalom. She won bronze medal at the Europeans in Liptovský Mikuláš. In addition, together with Eva Terčelj and Eva Alina Hočevar, she won a silver team medal at the World Championships in Augsburg in women’s kayak event. In the second part of the season, she reached the podium in the extreme slalom at the World Cup race in Pau, and recorded some other excellent results in the World Cup.

 

“It is a great honour for me to be chosen as the recipient of the Marjan Rožanc Award, the highest award of the Municipality of Ljubljana in the field of sports. In this season, I achieved successes I am very satisfied with. I'm trying to keep it that way in the future, and the award gave me some additional motivation,” said Ajda.

 

As she mentioned, she can be very satisfied with the season 2022: “In extreme slalom, I had no real idea what results I could expect. I knew that I was well physically prepared and that I could handle situations where there is a factor of quick decision-making. But I didn't know how the other competitors trained during the year, what conditions they had for training and how they were prepared. There was some uncertainty. In the team event, it was clear that all three of us are at a high level, that we just have to coordinate and paddle the way we know how. We managed to do that.”