Nineteen athletes will represent Moldova at the European Youth Olympic Festival 2015 that will take place in Tbilisi. The National Olympic Committee presented the national squad in a news conference on July 21. The squad includes four tennis players, six athletes, four swimmers and five judokas, IPN reports.

The competition consists of nine events that will involve 3,800 young athletes from 50 countries. “We have a very good team for this event. This competition is a launch paid for the young sportspersons. Many European and even world champions represented our country at this competition,” said the Committee’s president Nicolae Juravschi.

The European Youth Olympic Festival is a biennial multi-sport event for youth athletes from all over Europe, run by the European Olympic Committees, under the patronage of the International Olympic Committee. The first festival was held in 1991. Tbilisi was chosen as the host of the current edition at the 39th General Assembly of European Olympic Committees in Belgrade in November 2010.

At the summer editions of the festival, the Moldovan young athletes have won so far three golds (Irina Erhan – judo, Olga Cristea and Tatiana Cicanci – athletics), four silvers (Andrei Cecan – judo, Vasile Pogreban – kayak-canoeing K1 and K4, Maxim Melnichenko – K4, Denis Sergheev – K4, Dmitrii Subbotin – K4, and Anastasia Calinina – athletics), and eight bronze medals (Vitalie Mihailov, Victor Manolachi, Sergiu Iurcu, Vasile Braga – judo, Vasile Pogreban – K1 and K4, Denis Sergheev – K2 and K4, Dmitrii Subbotin - K2 and K4, Maxim Melnichenko – K4 and Anastasia Detiuc – tennis).