Anton Tkáč, the most successful track cyclist in Czechoslovak history, Olympic champion from Montreal in 1976 and two-time world sprint champion, died at the age of 71. The Slovak Olympic Committee announced his death today on its website. The weaver underwent heart surgery in the fall, but his health continued to deteriorate.
Tkáč also competed at the Olympic Games in 1972 in Munich and in 1980 in Moscow, where he finished fourth. He became world champion in 1974 and 1978. He also won bronze at the world championships in the fixed-start kilometer race in 1970, when he was only 19 years old.
He won the Czechoslovak Sportsman of the Year poll twice, in 1976 and 1978. He was named the country’s best cyclist three times. He finished second behind figure skater Ondrej Nepela in a poll about the Slovak athlete of the 20th century.
Tkáč’s first Olympic experience was bitter. Before the games in Munich, he was one of the favorites for the kilometer race with a solid start, but during training in Brno he fell and painfully injured his hip. Even though he could barely walk, despite his health problems, he had to start at the Olympics at the behest of the officials and finished thirteenth.
For the failure, he was punished by exclusion from the national team, which angered the temperamental rider so much that he stopped training. He returned to training only after a few months under the impression of the triumph of his friend from Slovan Bratislava Nepela at the World Figure Skating Championships in Bratislava.
After his return, he switched to sprinting, in which he achieved the greatest success. Tkáč’s most famous moments came at the Olympic Games in Montreal, where, as an unseeded player, he went over all his opponents to reach the finals. In it, coach Jaromír Žák’s protégé, after three exciting races, also managed the Frenchman Daniel Morelon, the biggest favorite and his old role model.
In the royal discipline on the track, he triumphed for the first time two years earlier at the world championship, also in Montreal, although he raced on a production bike of the Favorit brand. Only then, at the instigation of the Prime Minister at the time, Lubomír Štrougal, did he receive four top-of-the-line Italian custom-made machines.
Tkáč won the second rainbow jersey in 1978 in Munich, even though he wanted to end his career before the World Cup and did not train properly for half a year. He finished fourth at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
After the end of his career, he started coaching the national team. Later, he was an adviser at the Ministry of Defense, worked in the Slovak Olympic Committee and headed the national cycling association for ten years. In addition, he ran a business.
Paradoxically, the legendary cyclist never had his own bike. “My parents didn’t buy me one out of fear, because I was very temperamental. I already received another one from the club or the state,” the native of Lozorn, near Bratislava, recalled in the past. His successful sporting destiny was once decided by a recruitment race, which he won on a borrowed bike.
