Bosnian player Sladjana Topic has become the latest addition to CB Lanzarote Puerto del Carmen to compete in the upcoming Liga Guerreras Iberdrola season.
This is the third signing for the yellow team after the arrival of Argentinian Cati Benedetti and Chilean Antonella Piantini, which, along with the renewals of Mary Sánchez, Neus Llorens, and sisters Lucía and Cristina Betancort, begins to shore up Miguel Ángel Lemes' squad for the season in the top division of Spanish women's handball.
With Topic, the Tías team secures a player with experience both in her country's league and in France and Spain, where she has worn the jerseys of Marina Park, Handbol Amposta, and Rocasa Remudas Gran Canaria. With a more than remarkable sporting career, she comes from achieving the runner-up position in the French second division, where she was named best defender, and falling in the semi-finals of the French Cup.
Topic, 37 years old, stands out for her physical strength, 1.77 meters tall and 76 kilos in weight, and her enthusiasm and ambition, more typical of a twenty-year-old.
Topic, from the Guadeloupe Islands, confided with the island of Lanzarote in mind, "it seems that the islands this year are my destiny. For me, all of this about Lanzarote has been an unexpected turn, I was going to start other projects in another part of the world but Lanzarote has come up and I have put everything on hold that I have here and in France and heading to Lanzarote."
"Ten years ago, with Rocasa, we did a stage at Club La Santa. For me, it's like closing a circle."
Sladjana Topic remembers Lanzarote because "ten years ago, which doesn't make me any younger, with Rocasa we did a stage at Club La Santa. For me, it's like closing a circle because my professional career started in Spain. I really like defense, it's what I love about the game, I love to defend. I have spoken with Miguel Ángel Lemes and I have very good impressions of the team, I have seen some matches, what I have seen I like because it is an expressive team and it corresponds to me completely. It is a humble, close and historic club, with a philosophy and an environment in which I feel very good, we are going to live a very interesting season and hopefully at the end of the season the objectives will be achieved."
At 37 years old, Topic highlights her "enthusiasm and ambition this season, handball for me is a passion, a way of life, after more than 20 years as a handball professional for me it is everything, it fills us emotionally, I don't know if I will leave it this year but it is very difficult to make that decision, while the body holds up, the head continues."
The Tías coach, Miguel Ángel Lemes, values Topic's arrival more than positively because "she brings together several qualities that we were looking for in a player. We were looking for an experienced pivot, a good defender, a player who knew the league and a player who spoke Spanish. Well, she more than meets what we were looking for. She is a very dedicated player, with a prodigious physique and she will be very good for our 6:0 defense. In attack, she gains the position in the pivot very well and has a lot of shooting quality."
Lemes acknowledges that "what convinced me to sign her is the enthusiasm she showed from the first conversation, the desire with which she faces this new challenge and the conviction that she herself has that the objective of staying up was going to be achieved. I think she is going to contribute a lot to the team, and due to her character she will adapt very well to the group," concludes the Tías coach.
