In this week’s sports news: the Czechs lose in their last pre-Euro-2016 warm up; it’s silver for Marketa Sluková and Barbora Hermannová at the European beach volleyball championships; the Czech men’s kayak four strike gold; and an epic penalty shoot-out is a hit worldwide.
Czech lose 2:1 to South Korea in final pre-Euro 2016 friendly
Czech Republic - South Korea, photo: CTK
We begin with football, and the Czech Republic’s warm up preparations for Euro 2016 did not end on the most upbeat note. The match against South Korea in Prague on Sunday ended with a 2:1 defeat. The Czechs were already two down in the first half with goalkeeper Petr Čech looking at fault with the first goal direct from a free kick. And captain Tomáš Rosický setting up the second by giving the ball away. And the Czechs only found the Korean goal through a fortunate deflection just after the break with the chances of an equalizer eroded when Gebre Selassie was red carded.
Tomáš Rosický gave his commentary on the game afterwards.
“It was a great goal but the second goal was due to my own atrocious mistake. I slipped on the ball. It’s a repeat of what happened in the game against Russia and that also resulted in a goal.”
The Czechs fly out to France on Wednesday. The first game is against defending champions Spain, who beat South Korea 6:1 in a friendly, is on June 13.
Silver medal for beach volleyball pairing of Sluková and Hermannová
Barbora Hermannová, Markéta Sluková, photo: CTK
We turn to beach volleyball and the Czech women’s pairing of Marketa Sluková and Barbora Hermannová won silver at the European Championships being staged in Biel, Switzerland. In the final, the German pair of Laura Ludwig and Kira Walkenhorst were too strong and ran out winners 21:14 and 21:15. But the silver still represents the first European medals for Czechs in 14 years of trying.
Czech kayak four win gold at world championships
On the water, the Czech kayak four at the rapid water world championships hosted at Portugal’s Montemor struck gold in the one kilometre event. They coasted in around two seconds ahead of the second placed Australians. The Polish team was third. The event is the last major competition in the calendar before the Olympic games in Rio. The Czech foursome won the bronze medal at the previous Olympics in London.
Amateurs become world news with epic penalty shoot-out
Photo: tungphoto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
And we return to football again and a humble lower division game that made headlines around the world. Friday’s match between SK Baťov 1930 and FC Fryšták between the amateur teams in the Zlín regional league did not appear much to write about on paper. But it took a 52 penalty shots to eventually divide the teams after an earlier 3:3 draw. Images of the almost never ending shoot-out became a hit on the Internet with the news being reported across Europe, the Middle East, and as far away as Australia. By the way, SK Baťov 1930 ran out the winners in the shootout by 22 goals to 21.
