28-06-2008

Emil ZátopekEmil Zátopek Dear listeners and readers,

This year's Radio Prague Competition asked you to answer the following question:

Which Czech sportsperson or team has particularly impressed you?

The deadline was June 13 and we received a great many entries. Two finalists were selected from the mailbags received by each of our six language sections, along with eight other particularly interesting entries. All ten will receive a special prize.



The first prize, a week-long stay for two in Prague, is sponsored by OREA HOTELS, one of the biggest hotel chains in the Czech Republic.

You can read the entry of Jörg Teuschl here:

Even at an advanced age, the Czech sportsman who has made the biggest impression on me is Emil Zátopek. Why?
When I was a small boy we finally saw footage of the Helsinki Olympics in 1952 several weeks after the amazing games were actually held, at the cinema in our village. The star we most admired was Emil Zátopek, who they called the Prague Locomotive. We were really impressed by the way, his face twisted with pain and with his tongue hanging out, he overcame his adversaries, and how every competitor tried to achieve victory with a frightful grimace, just like Zátopek.


English section finalists:

Yukiko Maki, Japan

MacDonald Greg, Canada

Other winners:

Roy Kitson, Great Britain

Ashraful Islam, Bangladesh

Nobuya Kato, Japan

Avinash Premraj, India

Tom Blaha, USA

Alon K. Raab, USA

Mark Schiefelbein, USA

Li Ming, China