The Czech team experienced the least successful Summer Olympics in history with five medals, but the three golds covered the deepest wounds. The Slovaks also had the weakest games, they would have finished at zero without a single bronze. They are talking about a steep decline that will be difficult to stop.
On the third day of the games, canoeist Matej Beňuš brought joy to the Slovak fans, who took third place in the race in which the Czech representative Lukáš Rohan finished sixth.
Water slalom, traditionally a very strong national discipline, thus held the Slovaks. However, no more precious metal was added.
Jakub Grigar made a mistake in the white water in the final, the young canoeist Zuzana Paňková was fourth. Just like shooter Vanesa Hocková and tennis player Anna Karolína Schmiedlová.
Her coach, Ladislav Simon, said that there should not be a fight for third place in the tennis tournament, and that both defeated semi-finalists should receive bronze. But that is not the case yet and Schmiedlová lost her last match.
Wrestling coach Erik Cap was convinced that the naturalized Russian Tajmuraz Salkazanov, who represented a medal hope, was damaged by the referee in the first duel of the tournament.
With a balance of 0-0-1, the Slovaks in the medal order aligned with, for example, Peru, Cape Verde or Zambia. They still humiliated the worst result from Atlanta 1996 (1-1-1).
See the complete ranking of Czech athletes:
“Yes, it is a reflection of Slovak sport. Hopefully it will be a wake-up call for those who are dedicated to it in Slovakia and who care about it,” journalist Michal Gavroň wrote in a comment for the Slovak website Pravda.
“If they don’t ring the bell, we’ll be judging the games in Los Angeles in a similarly negative vein (if not worse),” he added.
The shooter Zuzana Rehák-Štefečková, the Olympic champion from Tokyo, who, however, did not qualify in Paris, expressed the same opinion.
“I don’t think it will be better in four years. If we start working now, it will show up in eight to twelve years. First of all, the base is important. Having enough sports fields and the possibility to capture new athletes,” she pointed out.
“They often struggle with the fact that sports fields are sold more for business. This means that adults can go and play sports, but children have no time,” Rehák-Štefečková mentioned one of the problems.
She also recalled the fact that the smallest Slovakian expedition in history started in Paris, and therefore miracles cannot be expected.
“With 28 people, we can’t expect nine medals. That’s why I want to congratulate Maťa once again for saving us. But our base is narrowing and with it also the chance for a medal,” she declared.
“Sport is slowly becoming something that we perceive only very peripherally in Slovakia. We will have to prepare meetings with the individual associations with the Ministry of Tourism and Sports and look for solutions already in the autumn,” said the Secretary General of the Slovak Olympic Committee, Jozef Liba.
His outlook is not exactly optimistic either. “We need to look for a solution in the long term. And I’m not talking about the state of winter sports in Slovakia,” he added.
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