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NEWS

Women in CSWC - Marija Marović, MAIN CSWC JUDGE

Marija Marovic is the best sample of the successful young woman passionate about cigar world - and she is CSWC Head Judge!!

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Marija Marovic - CSWC head judge

We have recently established Judges Association within our club. We thought it was about time to make one big step in that direction, since Cigar Smoking World Championship is no longer just fun and games. Now it`s more of a sport than fun. Do you think they would accept us at the Olympics?
 

First person to address that question would definitely be our main judge Marija Marović. For those that don`t know her, she is (was) a professional shooter until few months ago. She was representing Croatia in the 2016. Olympics in Rio. Yeah, she did! So, now she kind of changed one career for another. From professional shooter to main judge in CSWC. Do you see the similarities between the two? 

Anyway, we thought she would be the perfect candidate for that role, because a professional sports person has discipline, self-control and objectivity that most people don`t have. And she has a sense of responsibility that is key for the role, if we want everything to go as well as a Swiss watch or as we call it Cuervo y Sobrinos (See what I did here?). - Ivana Vrdoljak, Club mareva Vice President

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Marija during reading the rules on the Grand Final 

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Marija is with CSWC from early years

I can not remember first time I met Marija. It was Summer 2011., that much I do know, but I can not remember the exact situation. On the other hand I do remember the first time Marija joined our competition. It`s a funny story, actually (she didn`t find it funny back then, but now we all laugh about it). It was few months after we met. We had our competition in September 2011. and about half an hour before the competition, Marko came to me saying: “There are no women in the competition! We need a woman! We need a woman now!” My most obvious and pretty much the only choice was Marija, because she is the only woman I know that can get dressed in 5 minutes and is capable to do her make-up while driving (She could be a race driver, you know, but that`s another story…).

So, I called Marija and told her to come to the hotel, because we needed a woman to compete. I didn`t have time to explain what and how, I just told her to get dressed and where to come. Half an hour later, she was sitting in her seat at the competing table looking at me with big question mark above her head. Few minutes later, when Marko started reading competition rules, that was the first time Marija heard them and the moment she realized what she was actually doing there. And that`s not even the funny part of the story.

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marija as top Croatian sports woman on  Olympic games

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Always in good mood and ready for party

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She take her judge role super serious

The funny part of the story is that we had a journalist from national newspapers reporting on the competition. Seeing the only woman at the table, the journalist come to Marija and asked her name. Obviously, from the journalist point of view, she was the most interesting person there. And now comes the funny part. Marija told the journalist she can`t give her name, nor she wants to be connected in any way with this competition, since she is in the category of the top athlete and she is not even sure if she is allowed to be here at all. “Just pretend I am not here, untill I figure out weather I am even allowed to be here or not.”

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CSWC Women's power of Cigar Club Mareva

Next morning the newspapers came out with an article about our competition across half page. Half of that article was photo of Marija smoking cigar and under the photo there was description: “There was only one woman in the competition, but she didn`t want to give us her name, because she is in the top athlete category (?)” I loved this question mark they put at the end of the comment! I thought it was very funny. She didn`t find it that funny (In my defense, she did look good on that photo, I` m just saying…). Her father didn`t find it funny neither. He read the newspapers next morning and looked over the newspapers at his daughter with the same question mark as she was looking at me the day before: “Since when do you smoke cigars?” Now he is used to the fact that his daughter smokes cigars and is a judge in competition where people compete in who can smoke longer. Like I said, it`s become a true sport, so it only makes sense the person in charge of the judging part is someone who has spent their life as top athlete. She has qualities that can`t be learned in school or at the weekend course. You can only gain them with experience. So, we are lucky to have her. And she is lucky to have us, me especially. Because, what other person would write a whole article about her just to say: “Happy birthday, Marija! The drinks are on the club!” 

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