You started the celebration of the fifties at the Marcialonza in Italy and continued smoothly at the Jizerská 50. How do you feel after such an event?
“It was different than when I go on a trip to Šumava (he smiles). I announced in advance that I would take it easy, but once I’ve pinned my starting number, I can’t drive slowly. I’m not saying that I was on the verge of a physical breakdown, but I took some pain away from it. I’m limping a bit, I can feel my heel and some muscle groups. But I actually expected worse.”
At the finish line of the Jizerská 50, just like at the gold Olympic race in Turin 2006, your daughter Lucka was waiting for you…
“17 years ago, it was absolutely spontaneous, here it was a bit predictable, Lucka was at the finish line and she was looking forward to it. It was very nice, but Turin simply cannot be repeated, it was unique.”
The moment when you finally won the coveted gold at the age of thirty in your last Olympic race belongs to the history of Czech sports.
“It had a story. The Olympics is always a social event, which interests everyone, and I was already a mother… But it is certainly not the only race that I remember very fondly: the first medals from the WC in Trondheim, Nagano or the two golds from the WC in the 10 were extremely strong in terms of sport . But that Turin…”
Americans would say happyend, right? Even if you rode for another year and won one WC.
“The Olympic gold medal marked the end of my career at that moment. I seriously considered quitting after her, because I was suddenly fulfilled and didn’t even have the motivation to go on.”
Where did you finally find the motivation?
“I don’t like to use “go and enjoy it” in elite sports, because it hurts a lot and you enjoy the results as much as possible. But then it felt like a shame to throw away what I had trained. It was enough to feed it a little and I could ride the wave for another year.”
Do you think that the fact that you were a mother also helped with that Olympic breakthrough?
“It definitely contributed to that. And now I don’t just mean physiologically in terms of hormonal changes, but for me it was a lot about my head and overall mood. My pregnancy was not completely planned, but I enjoyed it until the last moment, it was one of the happiest periods in my entire life. And I also knew that I wanted to continue racing, I realized that a few minutes after I found out that I was in a different state.”
You have six medals from the Olympics, five from the World Cup. If it weren’t for the doping of other cross-country skiers, there could have been more of them. Are you sorry?
“Unfortunately, the time when I was racing was very much marred by doping. On the other hand, if I had more Olympic gold medals, it wouldn’t be a story from Turin. From a sporting and economic point of view, of course I may regret it, but it’s definitely not that I regret it. It could have been different, but in the end it still turned out great.”
You don’t blame the opponents from Russia or Estonia either?
“Not at all to those specific female competitors. I think it was about centrally controlled doping in their countries. Back then it wasn’t just the Russians, there was a big scandal in Finland, for example. And when everyone around you in your mini-bubble tells you that you can’t do without doping, I understand that an athlete can easily succumb. I can only be happy that I had a person with a solid character (coach Stanislav Frühauf, editor’s note) next to me, and that I was never put in such a situation.”
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But is it true that they offered you doping?
“We cannot lie to ourselves that the Czech Republic is an island of purity. That offer came, but we turned it down very quickly and they never came back.”
Is the sport cleaner now than it was in your era?
“I think it certainly is. Just the frequency of checks and their quality is completely different. When I was racing, I was on doping maybe twice a year, and that was only at races. It didn’t exist for us that someone would come to a training camp where you swallow extreme training doses.”
When we mentioned the Russians, as a member of the executive board of the Czech Olympic Committee, how do you view their participation in Paris?
“I’m sorry that it escalated like this a year and a half before the Olympics. From a purely sporting point of view, for example, as a co-commentator, I would welcome it if Bolšunov could compete with the Norwegians, but at the same time it is not possible, because he simply represents a regime that is waging an ugly war.”
Let’s move on to a more pleasant topic. Czech hockey players celebrated 25 years since Nagano last week, you took silver and gold there and you were not missing in the flight home surrounded by legends. How do you remember it?
“I can’t remember a meeting or an interview when someone didn’t ask me about it (laughs). It’s amazing what Nagano has left behind in the nation. I can only thank the hockey players that I rode with them, I was able to experience the wonderful collective joy, in addition with the best players that the Czech Republic has ever had.”
Do you have a specific memory?
“It comes back to me in unexpected detail. For example, when the bus had to use its windshield wipers to wipe off the champagne sprinkled by the fans on the windshield so that the road could be seen at all. And I also remember how the spring celebrations and other events cost me about five extra kilos, which I then had a hard time losing. I struggled with this until the birth of my daughter, he solved it.”
You mention your daughter, do you have a good relationship with Lucka? It definitely looks that way on the outside.
“Of course, we also have fun at home sometimes, so that it’s not just drenched in the sun (smiles). I’m glad that she has support in me, for example in sports, that I know what makes her happy, what worries her, or that she solves her relationships with me. She’s a nice girl that I can be proud of.’
Do you also resolve your relationships with her?
“She comments that I’m very picky… We live in a household alone, but if there was or theoretically will be a more serious relationship, of course she will know about it. I just don’t go into too much detail.’
You and your daughter’s father and your former partner Josef Jindra recently had to resolve a dispute about a cottage in Zadovo. How does it look now?
“For me, it’s settled. It happened before covid and it wasn’t very pleasant. I think that it shouldn’t work like that between people who have a child together and some past, but unfortunately. We owned the property in a joint company, and I didn’t deal with it for a long time with the fact that Lucca would one day have it. Then suddenly there was a threat of a sale, which I never wanted, but fortunately it turned out well, he is no longer in the ownership structure, and for me this whole chapter of life has closed.”
The next one will be in his fifties. What awaits you in it?
“Fifty, so what… I was 49 last year and I didn’t really experience it either. There will be some small celebrations, but I see no reason why it should suddenly be different now. Maybe if I was less busy, I would have had more time to think about it and maybe even fight with it a little. But maybe I could think about it and cut back a little on something, which, by the way, my daughter is forcing me to do.”
It is true that you did not stop after your career as a skier and jumped straight into the head of the organizing committee of the WC in Liberec, which left you with large debts. Would you do it differently today?
“Well, it’s clear that I would do it differently now. But that’s easy to say when you know how it turned out. Now, of course, I’m somewhere else completely, in terms of experience or contacts. But I guess I still have the impression that when an interesting job opportunity comes up, it’s hard for me to turn it down. And even if it seems absurd now, Liberec seemed to me to be something extremely interesting at the time.”
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