Munich (from our correspondent) – When he arrived at the stadium, he cheered the audience, he enjoyed the great atmosphere. And the downpour that delayed the start of the competition and then persistently drenched the high-flyers? This didn’t bother him at all either, he managed the basic height of 218 cm on the first attempt.
“I like the rain. Most of the opponents will be knocked out of it, and five of them did not jump the base, which is a massacre. But I have good advice from my coach Jarda Bába, who also liked to jump in the rain,” Štefela smiled.
What did he advise him? “Let me not sit there like little Jarin, but move and keep warm. And no stress from the rain,” explained Štefela, who already shone last year with the unexpected title of European under-23 champion.
It is the coaching work of the Czech record holder and Olympic bronze medalist that he cannot praise.
“Jarda is God’s coach. He has experienced a lot of such races, he knows how to prepare and warm up, and it helps me mentally when I know that he has experienced it and brought back some medals,” said the native of Krnov, competing for Pilsen and training in Prague, who cannot even remember Báb’s best races .
Jan Štefela is smiling, the bar in the qualification remained on the racks.Photo: TIME – Soňa Maléterová
“When he won the Olympic medal, I was three, I was probably on the sand somewhere. But Jarda told me a lot of things. What about? A lot of experiences are not said,” laughed the altitude phlegmatic, who doesn’t just throw things away. “I have it for salami. I do what I enjoy and I don’t risk anything,” he described his philosophy.
With a personal record of 224 cm, he is still thirteen centimeters short of the Báb’s Czech record. And he knows very well what he has to work on in order to make up for this shortcoming. “Especially in technique, that’s a big problem for me, especially going over the bar. But now it’s only been a year since I’ve been training with Jarda, he still wants to fine tune it. In terms of strength, I think I’m quite good,” he assesses.
Seventh place in Europe is a good starting point, especially in the exceptional setting of great fans, who were not deterred even by the rain. “You don’t just experience such an atmosphere. The ears hurt when they started cheering, massacre,” he sneered.
