Weekly review no. 43
16.08.2024
Disappointment with the Czech Olympic Performance
The Czech Olympic team returned from Paris with its worst medal count since the Czech Republic was founded in 1993. The athletes won three gold and two bronze medals, falling short of the results from Beijing 2008 (three gold, three silver, and one bronze).
The chairmen of the National Sports Federation, Miloslav Jansta, and the National Olympic Committee, Jiří Kejval, considered the result a failure, even though they emphasized the achievements of the medal winners and those who placed in the top 10. They identified underfunding in sports as the reason for the poor performance. This includes issues such as coaches’ pay and a lack of or inadequate infrastructure. This particularly affects team sports, where the Czech Republic has no chance of participating in the Olympic Games or other major tournaments in the long term, with the exception of ice hockey and soccer.
Jansta and Kejval also lamented the lack of appreciation for sports—and even more so for competitive sports—in society. Children are less active than they were years ago; there are too few physical education classes per week; and there is little participation in sports clubs, except in a few sports.
As is typical for smaller countries, the Czech Republic excels in a few sports. At the Olympics since 2008, 80 percent of medals have been won in six sports: tennis (7), javelin (7), shooting (6), canoe sprint (6), canoe slalom (5), and rowing (4). This time, only canoe sprint, tennis, and javelin delivered strong performances. The bronze medals in the épée fencing team competition and by javelin thrower Nikola Ogrodníková came as a surprise. Hopes for the next Games are buoyed by 30 spots in the top 10, with the six classic Czech sports again accounting for more than half.
Farewell to the Olympic Festival in Most
Like the Olympic Games, the Olympic Festival in Most also came to an end on Sunday. The National Olympic Committee organizes the Olympic Festival in a different city for each Olympic Games. Over two weeks, a total of 70,000 visitors were able to try their hand at various sports or get autographs from Olympic athletes. The épée fencing team, which surprisingly won bronze in Paris, also made an appearance. President Petr Pavel also visited the festival. The highlight of the festival was a nearly 13-meter-high replica of the Eiffel Tower made from marine plastic, which was produced using 3D printers. It has not yet been decided which city will host the Olympic Festival for the next Winter Games.
Kangaroos Escape from Prison
This story has even made it onto major American late-night talk shows: two kangaroos have returned after escaping from a prison in the central Bohemian town of Jiřice, northeast of Prague. After the first one was caught, the second returned on its own. Both had dug their way to freedom under the fence. However, since the kangaroos are not kept in the prison as punishment but for therapeutic purposes and to aid in the inmates’ reintegration, their return was not too difficult.
The prison in Jiřice is a so-called open prison. Not only kangaroos are kept there, but also other animals. The inmates are encouraged to take responsibility by caring for them.
Czech Embassy in Berlin before renovation
The Czech Embassy in Berlin is moving out of its iconic building on Wilhelmstrasse for the next five years. The reason for this is the renovation of the striking building near Potsdamer Platz. This renovation is long overdue and is primarily intended to provide better insulation and reduce operating costs. The renovation of the building by the renowned architect couple Věra and Vladimír Machonin—who designed other well-known Brutalist structures such as the Kotva department store in Prague—will be correspondingly costly. When the government decided to renovate the building in 2017, the estimated costs still totaled around 727 million crowns (29 million euros).
Meanwhile, the embassy is moving to an office building at Hausvogteiplatz 10. The Czech Center, which was previously located nearby on Leipziger Straße, was also most recently housed in the embassy building and has been operating from its alternative location at the Goethe-Institut on Neue Schönhauser Straße for some time now.
The consular section of the embassy will close on August 19 and reopen two weeks later at Hausvogteiplatz. The renovation, on the other hand, will not begin until spring 2025 at the earliest and will not be completed in time for the building’s 50th anniversary in 2028. Once completed, an application will be submitted to have the building on Wilhelmstraße designated as a historic monument.
ANO Names New Top Candidate for District Elections
A week and a half after the arrest of Chomutov Mayor Marek Hrabáč, his party, ANO, has named a replacement. Hrabáč was also his party’s lead candidate in the upcoming district elections. He is now being replaced by political heavyweight Richard Brabec. The former manager of the chemical plant in Lovosice and later long-time environment minister is one of party leader Andrej Babiš’s closest allies. The chemical plant in Lovosice belongs to the Agrofert Group, which made Babiš one of the richest Czechs. Brabec later entered politics alongside his boss.
Brabec’s nomination highlights just how tense the situation is in Prague. Members of the ANO party have already caused problems for the Prague headquarters in the past. The 2015 coup against its own mayor of Ústí nad Labem, Josef Zikmund, remains unforgettable. The current district governor, Jan Schiller—who is also a member of the ANO party but was clearly not considered good enough for a second legislative term or the election campaign—nearly met a similar fate. Schiller will therefore definitely step down after the elections. At the same time, he has applied for a seat in the Senate.
So now someone from the center who is close to boss Babiš is supposed to take over. The scandal comes at an inopportune time for ANO. As mayor, Marek Hrabáč is said to have manipulated the awarding of lucrative construction contracts in such a way that the same company was always awarded the contract. ANO is committed to fighting corruption. The Ústí district is also very important because it is a stronghold for ANO.
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The production of this newsletter is co-financed by tax funds based on the budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament.