From injury to motherhood: Eva Adamczyková is back at the Olympics after eight years
With the Winter Olympics in Italy just days away, we’re continuing our series on Czechia’s biggest medal hopes. One of the country’s most successful and most popular athletes is snowboard cross star Eva Adamczyková. The Olympic gold medallist from Sochi 2014 is heading to the Games after an eight-year Olympic break.
Eva Adamczyková, formerly Samková, was born in the town of Vrchlabí, the gateway to the Krkonoše Mountains, so it was almost inevitable that she would be drawn to winter sports. She started skiing at just two years old; a few years later, she tried snowboarding for the first time and never looked back.
“Friends of my parents brought a snowboard up the hill and asked if I wanted to try it. I tried it once with them, and later they lent me a small one from a rental shop. I didn’t want to give it back, so they bought it for me. Skis never really suited me, I was always second to last. And with skiing, you had to get up early, while snowboarders could take it a bit easier.”
Adamczyková initially competed in freestyle snowboarding, but after a series of injuries she switched to snowboard cross in the 2008–2009 season. The change proved decisive.
In 2014, she won Olympic gold in snowboard cross at the Winter Games in Sochi, the first gold medal for the Czech team at those Games and just the fifth individual Czech gold in Winter Olympic history.
She went on to add a bronze medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang and has since become a two-time world champion, securing her status as one of the most successful snowboard cross riders of her generation.
Over the years, Adamczyková has also become instantly recognisable for one unusual trademark: a moustache drawn on her upper lip with a felt-tip pen.
“It started as a kind of bet with a Polish racer who had grown a moustache. I thought I might draw one on myself, and he said I wouldn’t dare, so we made a bet for the next day. It was my first World Championship, in Spain, in 2011 and I finished fifth. I won the small final, and at that point it was my biggest success. It even got quite a bit of media attention, but I’m not particularly superstitious about it.”
In December 2021, her career took a dramatic turn when she suffered a serious double ankle fracture at a World Cup race in Austria’s Montafon. The injury ruled her out of the Beijing 2022 Olympics. But she returned in remarkable style, winning gold at the 2023 FIS World Championships in Bakuriani, Georgia.
The following season took an unexpected turn. Adamczyková spent ten weeks competing in StarDance, a celebrity dancing competition on Czech television, reached the final, and then returned to snow to win a World Cup race in her very first start back, in January 2024 in St. Moritz, Switzerland.
This winter, she completed yet another comeback, this time after a maternity break. She definitively secured her place at the Milan–Cortina Games with a seventh-place finish in the second World Cup race of the season in China.
The Sochi champion will travel to Livigno with her entire family, including her husband Marek and their one-year-old son Kryštof. She is heading to Italy already at the start of this week to allow for test days on the Olympic course.
“We’ll be there together the whole time. A few days before the race and for the races themselves, my sister will also come. She’s mainly going to watch, but she will also help Marek at least on the days I’m really busy."
“The race day is long. There’s qualification, then some downtime, and then the heats. We’ll divide it up somehow. But Marek has already managed a week alone with Kryštof, so I’m not worried about him at all.”
Now 32, Adamczyková will compete at the Winter Olympics for the third time in her career, and very possibly for the last time. She is set to line up for the snowboard cross race on Friday, February 13.
“It still feels kind of funny to me that I’m here, that I’m even getting all the Olympic gear. A year ago I had no idea whether I would come back, or whether I would even want to come back and compete. I’m going to Italy, but I still haven’t really managed to process it.”
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Olympics doubt for snowboard cross star Samková after double break
Czech snowboard cross star Eva Samková suffered a major injury at the weekend, breaking both of her ankles just two months before the Winter Olympics.
