Věra Čáslavská biography
Věra Čáslavská, (born May 3, 1942, Prague, Czechoslovakia [now in Czech Republic]—died August 30, 2016, Prague, Czech Republic), Czech gymnast who received a complete of 34 medals, together with 22 gold medals, on the Olympic Games and at world and European championships within the Nineteen Fifties and ’60s. Her profession was curtailed after she expressed help for better freedom in her homeland.
Čáslavská started her athletic profession as a determine skater, however at age 15 she turned to gymnastics, first showing in worldwide competitors on the 1958 world championships, the place she received a silver medal within the workforce occasion. She received the stability beam on the 1959 European championships and completed an in depth second to the Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina on the 1962 world championships. Čáslavská made her Olympic debut on the 1964 Games in Tokyo, the place she took gold medals within the all-around, the stability beam, and the vault. At the 1965 and 1967 European championships, she received each ladies’s gymnastic occasion. At the 1966 world championships, she contributed to the Czech workforce’s victory over the Soviets, profitable the gold within the mixed workout routines.
In June 1968 Čáslavská signed the “Two Thousand Words,” a doc that known as for extra speedy progress towards actual democracy in Czechoslovakia. After Soviet tanks entered Prague in August of that 12 months, Čáslavská, dealing with potential arrest for her political stance, fled to the mountain village of Šumperk. She was granted permission to rejoin the Olympic workforce only some weeks earlier than the 1968 Summer Games opened in Mexico City. There she dominated the gymnastics competitors, profitable gold medals within the particular person all-around, the vault, the uneven parallel bars, and the ground train and silver medals within the stability beam and workforce competitors. The day after profitable her final gold medal, Čáslavská capped her Olympic profession by marrying Josef Odloil, a Czechoslovakian middle-distance runner. The couple divorced in 1987, and in 1993 Odloil died from accidents sustained in a combat with their son, Martin, at a Prague disco.
As a results of her political convictions, Čáslavská fell out of favour with the Czech authorities and was initially refused employment. She was ultimately allowed to teach the nationwide gymnastics workforce. After the collapse of communist rule in 1989, Čáslavská grew to become president of the Czechoslovakian Olympic Committee. When the union with Slovakia was dissolved in 1993, she was named president of the Czech Olympic Committee. She additionally was a member of the International Olympic Committee (1995–2001). In 1998 she was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame.