Czech team wins five medals in third-best Winter Olympics result
The Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo ended on Sunday, with Czech athletes winning five medals in total: two gold, two silver and one bronze. It is the country’s third best result in Winter Olympic history, after the 2014 Sochi Games and the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang.
The final weekend of the Games brought a surprise medal for Czechia. Biathlete Tereza Voborníková won bronze in Saturday’s mass start race, the first Olympic medal of her career.
The 25-year-old missed just one target and left the final shooting stage in first place. But in the closing stretch she could not hold off two French rivals.
Speaking to Czech Radio moments after the race, she could hardly hold back her tears.
“I think I’ll still be crying a lot today. I’ve already cried a lot. It’s incredibly emotional for me and right now I’m experiencing the most beautiful moments of my sporting career – and probably my whole life. It’s just beautiful.”
Her bronze was the Czech biathlon team’s only medal of these Games and ended an eight year wait for an Olympic podium finish.
Otherwise, Czechia’s medals had already come earlier in the Games.
The first arrived in the parallel giant slalom in snowboarding. Favourite and two time Olympic champion Ester Ledecká was unexpectedly knocked out in the quarterfinals, but gold still went to the Czech team. Twenty-two-year-old Zuzana Maděrová from Liberec claimed the title and secured Czechia’s first medal of the Games.
On the same day, 19-year-old speed skater Metoděj Jílek won silver in the men’s 5,000 metres. The Prague native finished behind Norway’s world record holder Sander Eitrem and admitted afterwards he had hoped for even more.
Five days later he delivered. Jílek returned to the ice to win gold in the 10,000 metre race.
The remaining medal came from snowboardcross rider Eva Adamczyková. The 32-year-old, who returned to competition this season after maternity leave, won silver. It was her third Olympic medal, after gold in Sochi in 2014 and bronze in PyeongChang in 2018.
With the exception of Adamczyková, the medals were won by a younger generation of Czech athletes. The head of the Czech Olympic team, Martin Doktor, also highlighted several strong finishes just outside the podium.
“I’m very pleased about that, because we see it not only in the medals but beyond them as well. Jiří Tuž (cross-country skier) and others are finishing just off the podium or in the top eight. That’s extremely important, that there are more athletes reaching that level.
And when we look at junior competitions, we can see a new generation coming through. The key is to support them properly so they have the conditions to develop and take the sport all the way to the level where they can qualify for the Olympic Games and hopefully succeed there as well.”
For Czech fans, however, the Games also brought some disappointment. Alongside Ledecká’s earlier exit, the men’s ice hockey team, seen before the tournament as a possible dark horse, struggled throughout the competition and fell short of expectations.
At the closing ceremony in Verona on Sunday, the Czech flag was carried by speed skaters Martina Sáblíková and Metoděj Jílek. For Sáblíková, it also marked the end of an extraordinary Olympic career. The 38-year-old, the most successful Czech Winter Olympian with seven medals, competed at her sixth and final Games and finished 11th in the 5,000 metres.
