Sport in the Czech Republic
Sports play a significant part in the life of many Czechs who are generally loyal supporters of their favourite teams or individuals.
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The two leading sports in the Czech Republic are football and ice hockey, both drawing the largest attention of both the media and supporters. The many other sports with professional leagues and structures include basketball, volleyball, team handball, Czech handball, athletics, floorball and others. Sport is a source of strong waves of patriotism, usually rising several days or weeks before an event and sinking several days after.
The events considered the most important by Czech fans are: the Ice Hockey World Championship, the Olympic ice hockey tournament, the European football championship, the football World Cup and qualification matches for such events. In general, any international match involving the Czech ice hockey or football national team draws attention, especially when played against a traditional rival: Germany in football; Russia, Finland, Sweden and Canada in ice hockey; and Slovakia in both. Summer and winter Olympic games are also both very popular.
Ice hockey
Ice hockey is one of the most popular sports in the Czech Republic
The Czech national team
The Czech national team is one of the top teams in the world, regularly competing in the World Championship, the Winter Olympic Games and the Euro Hockey Tour. The national team captured their first Olympic Gold at the 1998 Winter Games in Nagano. From 1996 to 2001, the Czech Republic won six World Championship medals, including three consecutive gold from 1999 to 2001. Prominent Czech players include Jaromír Jágr, Dominik Hašek, Patrik Eliáš, Tomáš Plekanec, Aleš Hemský, Tomáš Kaberle, Milan Michálek and Robert Lang, who captained the 2006 Olympic team to a bronze medal. The team last won gold at the 2010 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships.
Extraliga
The Extraliga is the highest ranking ice hockey competition in the Czech Republic.
KHL
The team HC Lev Praha played two seasons in the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) league, beginning with the 2012–13 season. The team qualified for the playoffs, but was eliminated by HC CSKA Moscow. In the 2013-2014 season they reached the final where they lost the Gagarin Cup to Metallurg Magnitogorsk.
Motocycle racing
Speedway
Speedway has been run a league since the mid 1950s. The main stadium of Marketa in Prague 6 today hosts a round of the World Championship Grand-Prix series and is the only ever present in the competition. The major league teams are Olympic Prague, Pardubice and Slaný.
Longtrack
Longtrack racing has always had a major following in the country. The home of longtrack is Mariánské Lázně which is about two hours west of Prague. It hosts both domestic and international meetings and had held many of the World Championship finals and Grand-Prix rounds.
Riders
Some of the most famous to have competed in both sports are Aleš Dryml Sr. and his son Aleš Dryml Jr., Roman Motoušek, Zdeněk Schneiderwind, Antonín Šváb, Luboš Tomíček and Václav Verner.
Football
Football has been a popular sport amongst the locals. Previously the old Czechoslovakia team were a force to be reckoned with, finishing runners-up twice in the World Cup and winning UEFA Euro 1976. The sport gained even more support when the national team qualified for their first World Cup since the break-up of Czechoslovakia. More recently players such as Petr Čech, Tomáš Rosický and Pavel Nedvěd have gone on to achieve great success at top European clubs and have become national icons.
In domestic football, the Czech First League is the top-level in the Czech football league system. The most successful clubs are the two capital-based sides Sparta Prague and Slavia Prague. For a long time, Sparta Prague has supplied the national team with players such as Libor Sionko, Jaromír Blažek, Zdeněk Grygera, and Tomáš Rosický.
Sparta Prague has been a regular participant in the UEFA Champions League, and recently also joined FC Viktoria Plzeň and Slavia Prague.
As of yet, the Czech women's national team is still waiting for a breakthrough at the international scene, having participated at neither the FIFA Women's World Cup nor the UEFA Women's Euro. Most of the players are supplied by Prague's Sparta and Slavia, who have been the two most successful teams in the country, with Sparta having won the top domestic league 19 times between 1994 and 2018 and Slavia reaching the quarterfinals of the UEFA Women's Champions League three times in recent years.
Floorball
Floorball became a very popular sport in the last two decades in the Czech Republic. Czech Floorball, which is officially the Czech floorball association and a member of IFF, was established in 1992. In 2018 it had more than 70,000 members. This places Czech Floorball in third position between Finland and Switzerland in number of members worldwide. Since 1996, when the first Men's World Floorball Championship took place, until 2019, the Czech Republic men's national floorball team have achieved one second place and two third place finishes. Many Czech people also play floorball in their free time at an amateur level. In the 2019 they won the gold medal in the U19 world championship in Halifax.
Shooting sports
Sport shooting is the third most widespread sport in the Czech Republic.[2] Among notable shooters is Kateřina Emmons, who won the gold in 2008 Summer Olympics.
Baseball
Baseball is growing in popularity but is still considered a minor sport. The Czech Republic hosted the 2009 Baseball World Cup. A few Czech have signed contracts and are now playing in Minor League Baseball. The Czech Republic was invited to compete in the qualifying round of the 2013 World Baseball Classic.[3]
Cricket
Cricket has been played in the Czech Republic since 1997, however, as a sports body, joined the ICC International Cricket Council in 2000.
The Czech Cricket Union is the official governing body of the sport of cricket in Czech Republic. Its current headquarters is in Prague. The Czech Cricket Union is the Czech Republic's representative at the International Cricket Council and is an affiliate member. It is also a member of the European Cricket Council.
Rugby union
Josef Rössler-Ořovský, who introduced a number of sports in the then Czechoslovakia, among others skiing and tennis, was originally credited with starting rugby union as well back in 1895.[4] He went to England and brought back a rugby ball with him. Efforts were made to play the game at the Czech Yacht Club, but a public struggle ensued, and rugby subsequently never really caught on.
Czechoslovakia was a founder member of FIRA in 1934, and joined the IRB in 1988.[5]
Currently, Brno in Moravia, and the capital Prague are considered to be the centres for Rugby Union in the country.
Rugby League
Rugby league in the Czech Republic was started in 2006. The Czechs received government funding before a game was played there, and in their first game on August 5, 2006 in Prague, the Czechs went down 34-28 to the Netherlands.
In 2007 the Czech Republic took part in the European Shield tournament. This included two other 2nd tier nations; Germany and Serbia. Czech national team lost the both matches, v Germany 22-44 in Prague (4 August) and v Serbia 16-56 in Belgrade (18 August), and finished third.
In 2011, the Czech Rugby League Association was admitted to affiliate membership of the Rugby League European Federation after reforming its governance.[6]
Bandy
The national bandy team made its Bandy World Championship debut in 2016. In Nymburk an annual international rink bandy tournament is organised.[7] In 2017 Federation of International Bandy decided to make it an official one.[8] As of 2019, four teams are playing in the national rink bandy league. It is already decided that more will participate in 2019.[9] In terms of licensed athletes, bandy is the second biggest winter sport in the world.[10]
Horse racing
Among the most famous horse races in the country are the Velká pardubická in Pardubice, as well as the Czech Triple Crown of flat racing, which takes place at Prague-Velká Chuchle Racecourse.
Individual sports
Liberec (German: Reichenberg) hosted the FIL European Luge Championships in 1914 and 1939. Prague hosted the 1958 ICF Canoe Sprint World Championships in 1958. In 2009, Liberec hosted the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships and the Ski Jumping World Cup always comes here in January.
Skiing and snowboarding
The Czech Republic has produced a number of successful competitors in various skiing disciplines in recent years. Šárka Záhrobská has been a successful alpine skier, specialising in the slalom. She has won four World Championship medals in the discipline: a gold in 2007, a silver in 2009 and bronzes in 2005 and 2015. She also won a bronze in the slalom at the 2010 Winter Olympics.
At the 2018 Winter Olympics, Ester Ledecká won the gold medal in the super-G. Ledecká also took another gold at the same Games in the snowboard parallel giant slalom, becoming the first woman to take gold medals in two different sports at the Winter Olympics.[11] She also took Snowboarding World Championship golds in parallel slalom in 2015 and in parallel giant slalom in 2017. Ledecká also won the overall parallel and parallel giant slalom World Cup titles in 2015-16 and took another overall parallel World Cup in 2016-17. Eva Samková won the gold medal in the snowboard cross at the 2014 Winter Olympics and was World Cup snowboard cross champion in 2016-17. Šárka Pančochová took the overall freestyle and slopestyle World Cup titles in the 2013-14 season.
In cross-country skiing Kateřina Neumannová and Lukáš Bauer have enjoyed success. Neumannová won a gold medal in the 30 kilometre freestyle event at the 2006 Winter Olympics, as well as two World Championships in the 10 kilometre race in 2005 and 2007. She also won 18 races in the FIS Cross-Country World Cup. Bauer won the overall and distance World Cups in the 2007–08 seasons, as well as a silver and two bronze medals at the 2006 and 2010 Winter Olympics, and a silver in the 15 kilometre classical event at the 2009 World Championships. He is also a double winner of the Tour de Ski in 2008 and 2010.
In the sport of Biathlon World Championship golds have been won by Kateřina Holubcová (in the 15 kilometre individual event in 2003) and Roman Dostál (in the 20 kilometre individual in 2005). More recently Gabriela Koukalová enjoyed a breakthrough season in 2012–13, scoring four World Cup wins. She subsequently took gold medals at the 2015 World Championships as part of the Czech mixed relay team, and at the 2017 Worlds in the sprint. She was also overall World Cup champion in 2015-16.
Tennis
The Czech Republic hosts a number of tennis events each year, including the UniCredit Czech Open in Prostějov and Prosperita Open in Ostrava on the men's tour, the Sparta Prague Open in Prague on the women's tour, and the Strabag Prague Open for both men and women. The Czech Republic Davis Cup team and Czech Republic Fed Cup team sometimes play matches within the Czech Republic, too. The best tennis players from the Czech Republic include Jaroslav Drobný, Ivan Lendl, Jan Kodeš, Petr Korda, Tomáš Berdych, Radek Štěpánek, Martina Navratilova, Jana Novotná, Petra Kvitová and Lucie Šafářová.
Major sports facilities
Important Czech arenas and stadiums:
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Football
Eden Arena – Located in Prague's Vršovice district, Synot Tip Arena has a seated capacity of 20,800. It is the home stadium of football team SK Slavia Prague and was opened in 2008.
Generali Arena – home to AC Sparta Prague, has a seated capacity of 19,416 and was opened in 1917 and rebuilt in 1994.
Ice hockey
O2 Arena – Located in the Libeň district of Prague, the O2 Arena is the largest Czech multi-functional hall. Its capacity is 18,000 seats. HC Sparta Praha play their games there.
Ostravar Aréna – Located in Ostrava and opened in 1986, the arena has hosted Ice Hockey World Championships in 2004 and 2015.
Tipsport arena – former home to Sparta Praha, has a seated capacity of 13,150 and was opened in 1962.
The Olympic games
Among the most attractive events for Czech fans are the Ice hockey Olympics, especially against traditional rivals like Russia, Finland, Sweden, Canada, USA and Slovakia. The greatest achievements include gold medals at the 1998 Winter Olympic Games.
Youth sport
In 2014, just under 340,000 youths were registered with the Czech Union of Sport, representing a fall of more than a third since 1989's Velvet Revolution.[12]
References
- Jagr Scores 1,600th Point in Return. Associated Press via The New York Times (7 October 2011).
- Kyša, Leoš (28 January 2011). "Počet legálně držených zbraní v Česku stoupá. Už jich je přes 700 tisíc". Hospodářské noviny (in Czech). Czech Republic. Retrieved 28 January 2011.
- "Israel invited to qualify for World Baseball Classic". 2 June 2011. Retrieved 28 March 2012.
- (in Czech) Rugby Club Bystrc – Historie
- Bath, Richard (ed.) The Complete Book of Rugby (Seven Oaks Ltd, 1997 ISBN 1-86200-013-1) p66
- Caplan, Phil (27 October 2011). "RLEF formally admits four new members". www.rleague.com. Archived from the original on 28 October 2011. Retrieved 28 October 2011.
- European Rinkbandy Cup in Nymburk, Czech Republic
- Bandy destined for the Olympic Winter Games!
- Ingle, Sean (24 February 2018). "Ester Ledecka seals status as Winter Olympics snow queen with double gold". theguardian.com. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
- Willoughby, Ian (2 November 2014). "Large fall reported in number of young people engaged in organised sports since 1989". Radio Prague. Retrieved 15 November 2014.
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