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Over half a million people attended an exhibition at Prague's National Museum entitled Lovci mamutu (Mammoth Hunters) which closed on Sunday. Museum officials said they had sold 3,000 thousand tickets on the last day of the popular exhibition, which opened its doors ten months ago and twice had its closing date put back. As well as a life-sized replica of a mammoth, its main draw was the original Venus of Vestonice, an 11-cm statuette of a female figure believed to be 25,000 years old.

The leading Czech men's tennis player Tomas Berdych has advanced to the last 16 at the US Open. Berdych, who is 21, beat Fernando Veradasco of Spain to set up a clash with Andy Roddick of the United States, who won the Grand Slam tournament in 2003. Meanwhile, the US Open is over for the top Czech women's player Nicole Vaidisova; she was knocked out in the third round by Israel's Shahar Peer.

Roman Sebrle has won gold in the decathlon at the World Athletics Championships in Osaka. The world title had been the only medal lacking in the Olympic champion's collection. Sebrle's victory came in the tightest decathlon in the history of the world championships, with the 32-year-old Czech finishing only 32 points clear of his nearest rival.

It has been a rather successful world championships for the Czech Republic: as well as Roman Sebrle's medal, Barbora Spotakova won gold in the javelin on Friday, while Katerina Badurova took silver in the pole vault earlier in the week.

Prague's Metro was brought to a halt for around 40 minutes on Saturday afternoon due to a power blackout. Trains on all three lines stopped running at 5:15 when the whole Metro power system cut out, in what has been described as the longest halt of its kind in memory. Escalators were still running, allowing passengers to exit stations. Operators are investigating what caused the outage.