It is clear to you from a distance that the two are a father and a son. Lukáš Rohan has a similar figure and on the barrel wears the same fur as his father Jiří. Both share a love of canoeing and wild water, both have a silver Olympic medal from Monday, and Rohan the Elder has one more. And they both have a special relationship, because of which they just didn’t get involved in coaching cooperation.
Tokyo (From our newsletter) – You wouldn’t hesitate for a good one. The pedigree is uncompromising, Lukáš Rohan simply could not have a choice and had to end up by the water.
After all, Dad is a two-time silver Olympic medalist on the deblkánoi and as a coach he dragged his son from an early age through all corners of the Troja Shipyard. Mom was kayaking again. And she didn’t do badly at all. She could easily make it to the Olympics, but she was unlucky to have strong competition in the same generation. Her name was Štěpánka Hilgertová.
But little Lukáš kept his freedom, he tried sports for a long time like normal boys his age. Football, some athletics, floorball enchanted him again at the gym.
“Mainly thanks to the physical education teacher. At fourteen, it was already clear that the two sports could no longer be combined and I had to choose between water and floorball,” Rohan once recalled in Prince Wild Water.
At first, he was even afraid of turbulent rapids, but if his little friend Jířa Prskavec came down, what wouldn’t do too. So first he tried a kayak, then, following his father’s example, he settled into a deblkanoe and trained a bit for a secret on a single. He started to devote himself to the C1 category sometime eight years ago.
But you can’t say that Dad would be rushing to train him, and Rohan the elder still had it.
“The line of the relationship between the father coach and the son the competitor is different. I must say that it was easier with all the other charges. I was a great friend with some, with some less,” admitted Jiří Rohan in Tokyo.
In the end, their joint engagement was caused by overpressure in the group of Jiří Prskavec the Elder. “I don’t mean to say he was left with me, but it did a little,” he laughs.
Also, the young athlete did not want to involve family relationships in sports. “It was reciprocal, but now I have a medal, so in the end it’s a pretty good story, isn’t it?” Rohan smirked at Monday’s Olympic slalom finish.
But the essence of the story is the fact that he had to change a lot as a person. He used to be pretty nervous, he made a mistake and emotions broke with him. When he made a mistake, he often either had no motivation to try or fell apart.
That’s why he probably still has a feeling that he is best when he doesn’t pay much attention to him and not much is expected of him. He likes the role of an outsider. When he won the World Cup just before leaving for Tokyo, he said something similar.
“I would not like to say that I won and suddenly I have high hopes for a medal. It will be a completely different race in Tokyo,” he said in June.
And also that he was, only instead of gold he celebrated no less great silver. At the same time, he poked one of the goals right at the beginning.
“It’s definitely a big credit to my mental coach Honza Mühlfeit. If I poked like this at such an important race, I would start to get confused and make mistakes that would cost me such a placement. Today I was able to delete it immediately, move on and maybe it kicked me healthier, it gave me strength and I could until the end, “Rohan added.
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