Usain Bolt at the Boris Hanzekovic Memorial in Zagreb (© Zagreb Meeting)
Plaque name: Boris Hanzekovic Memorial
Location: Dinamo-Zrinjevac Athletics Club, Maksimirska Cesta 128, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia
Plaque awarded: 24/05/2025
Reason: Plaque Category – Competition
The Boris Hanzekovic Memorial, Zagreb, was founded in 1951. The meeting and its 110m hurdles memorial race were named after hurdler Boris Hanzekovic, one of Croatia’s best athletes before WWII, who was killed while trying to escape from the Jasenovac concentration camp.
The Boris Hanzekovic Memorial originated as an inter-club duel between Mladost and Dinamo and became an international event in 1962. In the following years, numerous good athletes from the Soviet Union, Hungary, Bulgaria, East Germany and Cuba participated in the meeting, and soon also others from Austria and West Germany.
The meeting made the next big step forward in the 1970s, with the Vjesnik newspaper publishing company as General Sponsor. Then, at the end of the 1980s, in the wake of the 1987 Universiade held in Zagreb, and after the crisis years during the war in Croatia at the beginning of the 1990s, the Zagreb Meeting increasingly developed in importance.
The meeting received Grand Prix status in 2000 and in 2020 it became part of the World Athletics Continental Tour Gold.
It was at the Zagreb Meeting in 2009 that Blanka Vlasic cleared 2.08m, which was then the second-best high jump result ever. One of the best athletes of all time, Usain Bolt, ran the 100m meeting record of 9.85 in 2011, and in 2017 the two-time world and Olympic discus champion Sandra Elkasevic threw 70.83m.
The 110m hurdles memorial race has featured all Olympic and world champions and world record-holders in the past 30 years. The meeting record stands to Mark Crear with 12.98 from 1999.
Since 2014, the shot put – named the Ivan Ivancic Memorial – has been taking place outside of the stadium, at the Zagreb Fountains. In 2016, for the first time in 28 years, two shot putters threw beyond 22.20m. They were Olympic champion Ryan Crouser and Olympic bronze medallist Tom Walsh.