DIRECT FROM PARIS | Pole vaulter Amálie Švábíková is finally in the same group as the world’s best competitors. In the Olympic final at the Stade de France, she fought like a lioness, jumping a national record of 480 centimeters and taking fifth place, the best so far among Czech athletes in Paris.
It was a real euphoria. TV commentator Michal Dusík couldn’t hold back and announced to the din of the roaring stadium: “To that you can only say: You brat!”
Amálie Švábíková just cleared 480 centimeters in the Olympic final on her third attempt, after eleven long years she broke Jiřina Kudličková’s national record and five steps higher she could fight for a medal.
At that moment, Švábíková jumped twelve centimeters above the level of her personal record at the start of the race. She passed the first attempt, in the second and third she already got into the air, but the bar fell in both cases. Even so, it is a breakthrough success for the former junior world champion and bronze medalist from last year’s indoor EC in Istanbul.
Švábíková once started with snowboardcross and was a training partner of rising champion Eva
Adamczyk’s
. But she chose athletics and followed the golden path. From her youth, she was one of the biggest Czech talents.
In 2018, she won the Junior World Championship, and a year later, at the age of just nineteen, she competed at the World Championship in Doha. In 2021, she became the European under-22 champion. Last year, she already won her first major medal at the European Indoor Championships in Istanbul.
Her jump in Paris at 480 centimeters reminded one of the most famous attempts of the Czech pole vaulter, with which Kateřina Janků took the silver medal at the 2007 championships in Osaka at a height of 475 centimeters.
At the Stade de France, Švábíková completed a marathon competition, which was influenced by a record number of qualifiers. Originally there were twenty of them. Even before the start, the Greek Ariadni Adamopoulu withdrew due to an injury.
After her first two successful attempts at 440 and 460 centimeters, Švábíková had about a forty-minute break. She rested on a bench in the sector and tapped her feet. She had her first hesitation at 470 centimeters, but she jumped the height the second time. In the end, he takes a great fifth place.
