Everyone remembers that moment. Kateřina Neumannová won the Olympic Games, it was her last race under five Olympic rings. At the finish line, her daughter Lucie ran to her. in February it will be an incredible twenty years. The native of Písek recalled an important moment in her life during a meeting in Sychrov, where she visited the alzheimer home for the elderly accompanied by moderator Pavel Petr. “Although Lucca is twenty-two, she says that the pink jacket will last her whole life,” laughs the native of Písek, recalling the most famous moments of her famous sports career. “She was running towards me in a pink jacket, that shot went around the whole republic. Of course, it was etched in the memory of many viewers, so she has the pink jacket hidden at home and she said that she will never get rid of it in a good sense of the word.”
It’s no wonder that everyone imagines little Lucka at the run. “Strangely enough, and I didn’t want to believe it, she has bits of memory even of the time she ran there when she was two and a half years old. She has a memory of her shoe falling on the way.” And again, the mother remembers very well what her daughter was wearing. “Those moon boots. Snow boots. Moon boots. Those chubby ones for the snow. She took off her clothes and the snow got into her boots. She remembers that. And then she remembers her sweaty mom when hugging her.”
The famous finish is also connected with the moderator’s carom. “Pavel Čapek and Zuzana Kocumová commented,” Kateřina Neumannová remembers perfectly. “At the end, when I was commuting, when I actually won, Pavel Čapek swung on that chair and she fell with him. He was climbing out from under the table and his expressions of emotion were also connected to the fact that there was a moderator falling from the chair.”
The 20th anniversary of a famous moment in Czech sports is approaching. “Well, we will celebrate in February,” laughs the successful Czech skier. “I’m not much for celebrations, someone always reminds me, journalists or the media, it’s clear that they keep records, anniversaries and so on. I still don’t remember which February it was. A lot of people remember it better than I do, because they associate it with some moment where they were somewhere, sat somewhere and so on, but I don’t remember the exact date.”
Kateřina Neumannová perceives the win at the 2006 Olympic Games as a bright and shining highlight of her career. “Of course, I like to remember it, because it is the greatest sporting experience of my career, when I remember it, those feelings sometimes come back to me vividly. Emotions that arise in a person. It’s actually nice how those strong memories remain rooted in the head. They remain in the person. But I rather celebrate things from the present life.”
Will you ever play a recording of the Olympic gold race? “Not much myself, but sometimes they play it for me at a meeting. I give a lecture for a company, for example, and quite often we start by playing the finish line of the race, because many employers would be happy if their employees had the kind of drive to the goal that I had back then. But I actually only saw the whole race once, and sometimes I think that I would like to play it in its entirety, because after all, for many people, the last kilometer is interesting for most, but for me, From a skier’s point of view, I would probably like to experience it in its entirety, but somehow I haven’t gotten around to sitting down with it for an hour and a half yet.”
