Spearman Vadlejch is the Czech Athlete of the Year for the first time

Vadlejch scored 1,609 points in the votes of athletic officials, coaches and journalists and won 165 points ahead of another javelin thrower Vítězslav Veselý, who decorated a very successful race in Tokyo with a bronze medal for Czech athletics.

“It’s great,” Vadlejch rejoiced. He has been in the top ten since 2016. “For me, it’s a price for some consistency, constant performance. I think it’s quite difficult to keep up with the truly maximum world leadership. The moment you stay in it, so in “It depends on my health. Even though I’ve been working on something for the last few years, it’s always worked out and I’ve always slipped around here,” he praised himself.

He was glad that after fifteen years he broke the dominance of women. “It’s a huge honor for me. Coincidentally, Roman Šebrle is the only other Czech after the partition of Czechoslovakia who had a silver Olympic medal in athletics. So it’s a bit of a symbolism for me,” Vadlejch mused. The women’s winnings were also caused by coincidence. “Whenever a guy succeeded in a season, such as Vít Veselý or Pavel Maslák, a woman like Zuzka (Hejnová) and Bára (Špotáková) always shone extremely that year,” he remarked.

The third place was taken by the indoor champion of Europe Tomáš Staněk, although he did not advance to the Olympic finals in the shot put. Kristiina Mäki, the surprising finalist of the 1,500-meter Olympic race, finished fourth by four points behind him.

The world record holder in javelin throw Barbora Špotáková, who is the record holder of the poll with nine wins, finished seventh this time. Another javelin thrower was Nikola Ogrodníková, Athlete of the Year 2018.

The world record holder and javelin coach Jan Železný, whose group includes Vadlejch and Ogrodníková, won the record sixth award for coach of the year. The decathlon fighter František Doubek, the junior world champion from Nairobi, became the junior of the year. The discovery of the year is another gold medalist from the same championship, the hammerhead Jan Doležálek.

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