Anton Tkáč, the most successful track cyclist in Czechoslovakian history, Olympic champion in Montreal in 1976 and two-time world champion in sprint, has died at the age of 71. The Slovak Olympic Committee announced his death today on his website. The Weaver underwent heart surgery in the fall, but his health continued to deteriorate.
Tkáč also competed at the Olympic Games in 1972 in Munich and 1980 in Moscow, where he finished fourth. He became world champion in 1974 and 1978. He also won bronze at the world championships in fixed-start mileage in 1970, when he was only 19 years old.
He won the Czechoslovak Sportsman of the Year poll twice, in 1976 and 1978. He was named the best cyclist in the country three times. He came second to figure skater Ondrej Nepela in a poll of the 20th century Slovak athlete.
Tkáč’s first Olympic experience was a bitter one. Before the games in Munich he was one of the favorites for the mileage with a good start, but during training in Brno he crashed and injured his hip painfully. Even though he could barely walk, despite his health problems, he had to leave the Olympics at the behest of the referees and finished thirteenth.
For failure, he was punished with exclusion from the national team, which angered the capricious driver so much that he stopped training. He returned to training only after a few months under the impression of the triumph of his friend from Slovan Bratislava Nepela at the World Figure Skating Championships in Bratislava.
After his return, he switched to sprinting, in which he achieved the greatest success. Tkáč’s most famous moments came at the Montreal Olympics, where, as an unseeded player, he outlasted all of his opponents to reach the final. In it, coach Jaromír Žák’s protégé, after three exciting races, also managed Frenchman Daniel Morelon, his biggest favorite and old model.
In the real discipline on the track, he triumphed for the first time two years earlier at the world championship, also in Montreal, despite racing on a factory motorcycle from the Favorit brand. Only then, at the instigation of the then Prime Minister, Lubomír Štrougal, did he receive four top-of-the-range Italian custom-built cars.
Tkáč won the second rainbow jersey in 1978 in Munich, even though he wanted to end his career before the World Cup and did not train properly for six months. He finished fourth at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
After his career ended, he started coaching the national team. Later he was an adviser to the Ministry of Defence, worked in the Slovak Olympic Committee and headed the National Cycling Association for ten years. Besides, he ran a business.
Paradoxically, the legendary cyclist never got his bike. “My parents didn’t buy me one out of fear, because I was very capricious. I had already received another one from the club or the state,” the native of Lozorn, near Bratislava, recalled in the past. His successful sporting destiny was once decided by a recruiting competition, which he won on a borrowed bicycle.
