2nd Olive Picking Championship Set for October

The 2^nd World Olive Picking Championship will be held from October 11 to 14, 2018 on the Croatian island of Brač.

The host of this inter­na­tional event is the charm­ing 16^th-cen­tury fish­ing vil­lage of Postira on the north coast of the island which is also an olive grow­ing region.

The orga­niz­ers have put out a call for teams from all over the world to par­tic­i­pate in the 2018 com­pe­ti­tion. The aim of the inter­na­tional event is to fos­ter friend­ship among olive oil lovers from dif­fer­ent parts of the world and pro­vide an oppor­tu­nity to learn about the island’s olive oil sec­tor.

During the com­pe­ti­tion, each team’s olive har­vest­ing skills are tested in two cat­e­gories: tra­di­tional hand-pick­ing and mod­ern pick­ing tech­niques using hand­held har­vest­ing rakes. Each team is made up of four mem­bers (two women and two men) and the team that picks the most olives within a deter­mined amount of time wins.

At the first cham­pi­onship in 2017, nine teams made up of par­tic­i­pants from Croatia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Montenegro, the Netherlands, Slovenia and New Zealand took part.

“The first edi­tion of the World Championship in Olive Picking was really much more than we expected. The peo­ple, atmos­phere, weather, local peo­ple, media, every­thing,” shared Ivana Jelinčić, the direc­tor of the Postira Tourist Board and one of the event orga­niz­ers.

“Participants came here to take part in some­thing that never hap­pened before, to some­thing unknown. They gave us their con­fi­dence and we did our best. Soon they all became friends but also each team also wanted to win. Postira is a small vil­lage with only 1,500 peo­ple liv­ing here so local peo­ple knew who the par­tic­i­pants were and were hang­ing out with them in local bars.”

At the 2017 edi­tion, the Croatian team came first with 107.6 kg and the advan­tage of hav­ing Tonko Škarić, known as the fastest olive picker on the island, as part of their four-mem­ber team. The Netherlands came sec­ond with 86.4 kg, while Hungary fol­lowed close behind in third place with 84.4 kg.

Winners took home sym­bolic medals made of the white stone the island of Brač is famous for, while all par­tic­i­pants received a bot­tle of oil freshly pressed from the olives har­vested dur­ing the com­pe­ti­tion.

“The event also gen­er­ated a lot of media inter­est,” revealed Jelinčić. ​“All the main Croatian TV chan­nels came to Postira and the com­pe­ti­tion was widely reported on TV, online and offline.”

The com­pe­ti­tion is not all about spend­ing time in the groves and pick­ing olives. There are vis­its orga­nized around the island to meet local pro­duc­ers, visit the island’s olive oil museum, see a tra­di­tional mill, and explore inter­est­ing tourist spots like the eco-ethno vil­lage of Dol and Zlatni Rat, one of Croatia’s best beaches. Of course, there’s also the oppor­tu­nity to taste local olive oils as well as those from par­tic­i­pat­ing coun­tries.

Brač has only 15,000 res­i­dents liv­ing on this Adriatic island but one mil­lion olive trees grow here. Olives have been cul­ti­vated here for cen­turies and locally-pro­duced extra vir­gin olive oils have won inter­na­tional awards for their excep­tional qual­ity.

The Postira tourist board sup­ports this inter­na­tional event by pro­vid­ing board and lodg­ing for all the par­tic­i­pants.

“So far we have con­firmed teams from Slovenia, Hungary, Greece, Montenegro, the Netherlands and Croatia,” said Jelinčić. ​“We’re still receiv­ing appli­ca­tions from par­tic­i­pants and would espe­cially like to have peo­ple from Spain, Portugal and France join us this year.”

To get in touch with the orga­niz­ers, visit the web­site of the Postira Tourist Board.