“No, we weren't deciding whether we would attend the closing ceremony. No at all. We were thinking of Eliška Misáková and we expressed how sad our team was. We weren't thinking about not attending the closing ceremony. As it was the climax of that part of the competition. As you had already said: there was this glorious victory and also this big sadness. Miloslava Misáková, Eliška's sister, she took it very bad, that she wouldn't return home with her. She was tough, quite a fighter, but for her, it was... When she did her performance, it was like she was delivered from that grief of hers. She had to concentrate and to stop thinking about Eliška for that moment. So this sport and Olympics had helped her in a way.”
“Eliška Misáková's health was deteriorating pretty fast, so Dr Hornof had to bring a local specialist and together they decided that it was polio. It was a killer disease back then as there was no cure for it. So our team was under great pressure. At first we were like: 'We won't be competing. If Eliška can't do it, we won't either.' Then we were thinking that we would compete. As if we would win, so would Eliška. And we managed to do that but, unfortunately, Eliška died the night after the competition. It was a difficult situation, even for the organisers. They were afraid that we brought that infection. At first they wanted to disqualify us, so the infection wouldn't spread. But later they just brought this nurse who would take our temperature, so they would be able to detect it right in the beginning. But we were quite nervous because all of that.”
“We went there for the second part of the Olympics. There was no Olympic Village back then. They made us stay in this hall of residence at some university. And we were having a good time. After quite a long time we saw oranges and bananas. Brits handled the organisation of the Olympics quite well. And thye solved the issue of transportation in quite a simple way, they gave us free tickets for the bus and the tube. And we had to manage to get where we were training and also where we were competing. And it was quite far away.”
„Tatínek zůstal ve Varnsdorfu, ale bylo to tam velice těžké. Jednoho dne ráno ve čtyři hodiny ráno na něj klepal jeden Němec, jeden z našich přátel. A říkal má - Musíš okamžitě pryč, protože je vyhlášen hon na Čechy a já neručím za tvůj život. Tak tatínek vzal kolo, kolem krku ručník, aktovečeku s doklady. My jsme měli psa Ádu, ta se vzpírala. Ona už vytušila, že tatínek odjíždí. Tatínek říkal - Pusť ji, ať jde se mnou. Tak ona kolem něj běžela až do Nymburka. Potom bylo strašně těžké pro tatínka najít zaměstnání, protože ten nával z těch Sudet, kolem dokola Čech a Moravy, byl veliký. Neměli jsme kde bydlet, tatínek neměl práci.“
Věra Růžičková, née Schuláková, was born on August 10th 1928 in Brno. Since childhood her father encouraged her to do sports, she did skiing, hiking, played volleyball and competed in diving as a professional Brno water sports team member. She won second place at a national diving competition. Since her early childhood, she was an ardent Sokol organisation member. After 1946, Věra devoted most of her time to gymnastics as she wanted to compete in it at the Summer 1948 Olympics in London. She did a two-year national team training course and went to London as a backup. She started instead of Eliška Misáková who felt ill at that time. Czechoslovak women‘s athletics team won gold, in the individual competition, Vera ended up sixth. On the evening after their glorious victory, Eliška Misáková died. The athletes brought back home both their golden medals and an urn containing her ashes. After the Olympics, Věra gave birth to her two sons, who had both been doing sports. After graduating from Charles University‘s Faculty of Physical Education and Sport she started working as a coach and a referee. She got many prizes and awards, including the Věra Čáslavská Award or the Medal of Merit by the President. In 2017, she has been living in Brno.
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