Šárka Kašpárková

* 1971

  • "So I am often asked of which medal is the most valuable. I get the question quite often. And of course the Olympics are unique in that they are held every four years, so everything had to come together the way it should be. But when you win the title and stand up on the podium and the Czech anthem is played so that's the most beautiful feeling I know. So for me, the most important and biggest medal is definitely the gold one from the World Cup."

  • "I personally think that not only in terms of sport, not everything before 1989 was bad. And I think that the sophisticated system of sports from the recruitment of children all the way to the end, that the system was set up well; starting from sports classes in primary schools focused on various sports, sports grammar schools, top sport centres. I think it is that today there is a terrible chaos in our sport and it lacks order. And I think that nowadays doing sports is far more complicated for young people and children than it was before, that before everything went so smoothly, now everything is kind of tough, but I say, I don't think the sport system that was set up to hunt for the talented children was bad. And I think today's sport lacks it."

  • "And I have a story, for example; I don't know if I went to the second or third grade, and my dad came on a business trip to Brno, and he stopped by and I was just supposed to go to training. And my dad brought some stuff from the house for me there that I needed. And dad was leaving the school and I was standing behind him with tears in my eyes and I knew that he was in Brno and I could not be with him. So I remember that the coach allowed me not to go to training, and I spent time with my dad instead of training and I was very happy then."

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    Praha, 22.05.2019

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    nahrávka pořízena v rámci projektu The Stories of Our Neigbours
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Politics does not belong in sports

Teenager
Teenager
zdroj: archiv pamětníka

Šárka Kašpárková was born in May 1971 in Karviná, but she spent her entire childhood in Havířov. Since early age, she enjoyed sports, starting with basketball, but athletics became her discipline. At the sports grammar school in Brno she began to devote herself intensively to high jump and very soon started collecting the first prizes. Even before 1989, she used to go abroad to compete, for example at the Junior World Championships in Canada in 1988. She spent the Velvet Revolution as a student at the Faculty of Education in Ostrava, remembering the great fear of omnipresent police officers. Shortly after joining the university, injuries took place and she even thought of ending her sports career, but fortunately with the help of a capable coach, Šárka went on with it. In 1992, she attended the Olympic Games in Barcelona, and although she did not pass the qualifying race, it was still a great success for her. Then she switched from a high jump to a triple jump, which was the discipline she represented the Czech Republic at three other Olympic Games - in Atlanta (1996), Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004). However, he considers the gold medal from the World Athletics Championships (1997) to be her greatest success. She ended her sports career in 2006. Today she works with children as part of the Sazka Olympic multi-sport. She has a daughter with his partner Michal, who was also her coach.