Karma is not free. Blind swimmer David Kratochvíl could have gone to the Paralympics three years ago, but he gave up his place to veteran Miroslav Smrček and received a fair play award for it. He had already gone to Paris and at the age of just sixteen won three medals at the Paralympic Games, including gold in the 400-meter crawl. “He is a megastar with everything that goes with it,” says Zbyněk Sýkora, chairman of the Paralympic Committee.
He was a thirteen-year-old boy, but he acted like a grown man. David Kratochvíl met the limits in five disciplines at the Tokyo Games, but he gave up his place to 58-year-old Miroslav Smrček, who thus fulfilled his dream.
“Míra was a great friend, he was a guy. I knew it would be his last Paralympics, so I said to myself: Look, Míro, go, enjoy it for me,” recalls Kratochvíl. “I think it was a good decision. Míra went there for the last time, I wished him to enjoy it. I went to enjoy it now and there are three medals. It’s divine, it’s an experience!’
In the arrivals hall of the airport in Ruzyna, Kratochvíl had three medals hanging around his neck after returning from Paris. He claimed gold in the 400 freestyle in a European record 4:26.34 minutes, beating previous holder Rogier Dorsman of the Netherlands by a staggering five seconds. He won silver in the 100-meter breaststroke and bronze in the 200-meter medley. And he missed out on another cake by just one hundredth of a second in the 100 butterfly. All this in the S11 discipline, which designates competitors with absolute vision loss.
Kratochvíl became blind in one eye as a toddler, and lost sight in the other eye at the age of six. “I have a huge advantage over blind people who have not seen since birth, I remember an awful lot of pictures. I remember colors, I can recall everything I touch in my head,” explained Kratochvíl at the end of the Games in the podcast of the Czech Paralympic Committee.
Parisian atmosphere and special medals
In Paris, he fully enjoyed the atmosphere of the packed La Defénse Arena, where the French national hero Léon Marchand excelled at the Olympics a month ago. After the gold race at 400 meters, Kraul also tried the classic victory gesture, sitting on the pontoons that define the track.
“As I was tired after the four kilos, my hands didn’t work, so I wanted to sit there, the tracks turned and I went under the water. That was a bit comical,” laughs Kratochvíl. “On TV, the atmosphere is muted when you stand behind the block by the pool, it’s really a massacre. When you tune in, the fans scream, it’s divine. You can’t experience that anywhere else than at the Paralympics.”
There are a total of 54 grams of Eiffel in his three Paralympic medals. And even though he can’t see them, he can tell one from the other. “There are three dashes here, bronze has three, gold has one, silver has two. Even us blind people can recognize what kind of medal it is,” explains Kratochvíl. “They’re heavy, it’s great to have all three of them on your neck, it’s great.”
The Czech expedition brought a total of eight medals from Paris, equaling the number from the last Paralympics in Tokyo. Half were won by swimmers, in addition to Kratochvíl with silver in the 50-meter breaststroke, Arnošt Petráček, a wrestler with a congenital defect of the upper and lower limbs, shone. Archers Šárka Pultar Musilová, David Drahonínský and Tereza Brandtlová added three medals. Table tennis player Jiří Suchánek also succeeded. Compared to Tokyo, the number of expedition members also increased from twenty-eight to thirty-two.
“We wanted to reverse the downward trend of athletes and we wanted to stop the drop in the number of medals won. We can call the Paralympics in Paris a success,” assessed Sýkora.
But normal days are already beginning for Kratochvíl. On Tuesday morning, he must be at the six-year grammar school in Tachov, where the fourth year begins. “I asked my mother on the plane if it couldn’t have turned out differently, but she said no, that she was also going to work…” laughs Kratochvíl. “I’m looking forward to seeing my friends, they say there’s something ready.”
Czech medals from the Paralympics in Paris
GOLD
David Kratochvíl — swimming (S11) 400 meter crawl
SILVER
David Kratochvíl — swimming (S11) 100 meter backstroke
Šárka Pultar Musilová — archery (W1)
Šárka Pultar Musilová, David Drahonínský — archery (mixed pairs)
Jiří Suchánek — table tennis (MS2)
BRONZE
David Kratochvíl — swimming (SM11) 200 meter individual medley
David Kratochvíl — swimming (SM11) 200 meter individual medley
Arnošt Petráček — swimming (S4) 50 meter backstroke
Tereza Brandtlová — archery (W1)
