Jiří Kynos

* 1943

  • “In 1959 our dad was imprisoned within the so-called Action S. The reasoning for it was that me and my brother were receiving a scholarship without any legal entitlement. In 1960 the Ministry of Education published a regulation according to which children from trade families were not supposed to receive scholarship. They applied it to our case even though we only received scholarship before 1959. They undertook a house search, confiscating a collection of paintings and all the valuable belongings. My dad was sentenced to two and a half years. He then had to serve his sentence in Příbram and upon return in 1962 he told us: ‘If I live for another eight or ten years, I am good because people who have been there tend to fall ill with cancer within ten years.’ He died on 2 August 1968 at half past seven in the morning. At half past nine, a notice of his rehabilitation arrived from the Supreme Court. Pavel Rychetský’s father opened this case up in 1965 as a textbook case of abuse of power. My father was rehabilitated but our property was only returned to us in 1989.”

  • “The night from 20 to 21 August 1968 was terrifying. I was returning from a shift back home – back then me and my family lived in Obránců míru street, later renamed to Milada Horáková’s street. I saw everything arriving in past the Letná Plain, I saw shots being fired into the tunnel, preparations for the Communist Party assembly… I took a lot of pictures secretly from behind the curtain. These were horrible years – we did not know what was awaiting us.”

  • “We were told that if we managed to finish the 4x100 m relay in less than forty seconds we would be nominated for the Olympics. Back then, the world record was a little above 39 seconds. We have had our last chance in September 1964 when an international athletics race took place at Strahov in Prague. We competed against the Hungarians. The 4x100 m relay was the last discipline. The Hungarians won by about a meter. The final times had appeared on the board: Hungary – 39.8, Czechoslovakia – 39.9. Our team was composed of Pepík Votrubec, Josef Trousil, me and Vilda Mandlík. I said: ‘We have made the limit; we will go to the Tokyo Olympics.’ But the Hungarians filed a protest, stating that they had won by over a meter and that they had actually finished in 39.7 which was their nomination limit. It is still alive in my memory: Dr. Kantůrek, the head referee, took a sponge and left the Hungarians with 39.8, wiping off our 39.9 and writing 40 instead. We were, so to say, left empty-handed and stayed home.”

  • Celé nahrávky
  • 1

    Praha, 13.03.2014

    (audio)
    délka: 59:38
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu Sports Stories of the 20th Century
  • 2

    Praha, 13.03.2018

    (audio)
    délka: 38:07
    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
Celé nahrávky jsou k dispozici pouze pro přihlášené uživatele.

I am faithful to Dukla to this day

Historical photo
Historical photo
zdroj: witness archive

Jiří Kynos was born on 24 March 1943 in Třebechovice pod Orebem. He grew up having a pond just a hundred meters from his home and a football field only two hundred meters far. This foreshadowed his future sports career. As a child he would spend the winter on ice-skates on the pond and the rest of the year on the field. From six to eighteen years of age he had competed in both hockey and football. During his studies of a technical school in Rychnov nad Kněžnou had he discovered athletics which later became his primary discipline. In 1960 during a PE class he had finished a 100 meters race in 11,9 seconds and a year later began competing in sprint races, thus adding to hockey and football. Jiří‘s times were improving constantly. In 1961 already did he finish a 60-meter dash in a record of 6,9 seconds and 100 meters in 10,6 seconds, ending third at the Czechoslovak championship and becoming a member of the national junior team. Thanks to his university education, following his active career he was able to become a clerk with the top level sports department at the Ministry of National Defense. There he stayed from 1974 to 1988 when he became a member of the governmental committee for sports.