Category: Interviews & Profiles

In 1962, Věra Čáslavská won her first all-around title at the Czechoslovak Championships, and heading into the World Championships in Prague, the expectations were high for the star of Czechoslovak gymnastics. The Czech-language sports newspaper Stadión printed an article on Čáslavská, which is part profile, part Shakespearean play, and part fairytale.

Note: A fairytale seems bizarre, but pohádky (fairytales) are a vibrant genre in Czech culture. Čáslavská even wrote one about gymnastics in her autobiography, which you can find translated here.

My Thought Bubble: That said, the combination of fairytale and Shakespearean characters is a bit bizarre, but the profile gives us an idea of how Czechoslovak journalists wrote about athletes at the time.

Right before the Mexico City Olympics, the Czech-language magazine Reportér printed a long interview with Věra Čáslavská. It covered a wide range of topics: her relationship with the media, her superstitions, her relationship with her coach, her first World Championships, and more.

You can read a translation below…

At the end of 1967, Věra Čáslavská was on top of the gymnastics world. She had won the all-around at the 1964 Olympics, the 1965 European Champions, the 1966 World Championships, and the 1967 European Championships. In fact, at the 1965 and 1967 European Championships, she swept the gold medals, and in 1967, she scored two perfect 10s.

But how do you ensure that a golden gymnast stays golden? That was the question that the reporter Robert Bakalář posed to Jaroslava Matlochová, Čáslavská’s coach, in an interview published at the end of 1967.

Note: Matlochová would become a part of the Women’s Technical Committee in 1968.