Věra Čáslavská was a Czech gymnast, Olympic champion and later a figure of the Olympic movement.
Věra Čáslavská, nicknamed Golden Věra, was a Czech gymnast. The Czech Olympic Committee ranks her together with Emil Zátopek among the greatest legends of domestic sport, both for her results and for her civic stances. She died in August 2016 at the age of 74 after a long illness.[1]
Sporting career
From childhood she showed a talent for movement, first in ballet and figure skating and from the age of 14 in gymnastics, which she began under the guidance of Eva Bosáková. In 1958 she competed as the youngest participant at the World Championships in Moscow, a year later she won the balance beam at the European Championships in Kraków, and at the 1962 World Championships in Prague she broke into the world elite.[1]
Over her career she won, according to the Olympic Committee, about 140 medals, and she was world champion four times and European champion eleven times. At the Olympic Games she won seven gold and four silver medals.[1]
Olympic Games
At the Games in Rome in 1960 she won silver in the team event, partly because of health problems. In Tokyo in 1964 she won the all-around, the vault and the balance beam, and added silver with the team. On the uneven bars, according to the text, a fall prevented her from winning, but she performed the whole routine again without a mistake.[1]
At the Games in Mexico in 1968, held less than two months after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Soviet army, she defended her all-around title and won the uneven bars, the vault and the floor exercise. She won silver on the balance beam and in the team event. At the end of 1968 she was proclaimed the best sportswoman in the world.[1] She ended her competitive career after these Games.[1]
After 1968
As one of the symbols of the Prague Spring she was interrogated by State Security after returning from Mexico. When she refused to withdraw her signature from the Two Thousand Words manifesto, she fell out of favour and could not find work. At the end of the 1970s she received permission to travel with her family to Mexico, where for two years she worked with local talents.[1]
After November 1989 she worked as an adviser and assistant to President Václav Havel, from 1990 to 1996 she was chair of the Czechoslovak and later Czech Olympic Committee, and from 1995 to 2001 she was a member of the International Olympic Committee.[1]
Awards
A four-time Sportswoman of the Year in Czechoslovakia, she received a number of honours. In 1989 the International Fair Play Committee at UNESCO awarded her the Pierre de Coubertin Prize, and in 1991 she received the Olympic Order of the IOC. She is also the holder of the state Medal of Merit from 1995 and the Japanese Order of the Rising Sun from 2010.[1]