Satková comes from a rowing family, her older sister Martina is also successful in water slalom, and her brother Adam is in white water skiing. She herself has always been an all-round talent, even though Brno, where she comes from, did not have a full-fledged water slalom track. She mastered slalom and downhill, kayak and canoe.
She collected medals from the youth categories and soon made her way into the senior national team. At the age of eighteen, she became the European canoe champion in Prague, and a year later she took world bronze.
She made her way to the Olympic Games in Paris, where she was a medal contender, but after winning the semi-final, she accumulated mistakes in the final and finished seventh.
The ward of Ondřej Cviklo will not add any more successes. “It wasn’t an impulsive decision. More like a quiet maturation,” she said. She then went into more detail on her Instagram.
“It is said that it has to end in the best. I have been struggling for some time with the fact that I do not know how long I will stay with water slalom. This sport was a huge part of my life and for a long time it was my world. I enjoyed it and I enjoyed improving in it and I became a professional athlete,” said Satková.
“Nevertheless, I always felt that I was more of a girl who simply enjoys sports than someone who wants to be a professional athlete. At the same time, I have always devoted myself to my studies, and in recent years I have increasingly felt that I would like to devote myself to other things as well,” wrote the student of the Faculty of International Relations at the University of Economics.
“However, after much thought, I have come to the conclusion that I would like to keep this sport just as a hobby and joy, as when I started with it. This decision was not at all easy for me and there was not even a bit of nostalgia. Nevertheless, I feel that it is the right path for me now,” she is convinced and promised to stay by the water.
National team coach Jiří Prskavec Sr. was sorry for her decision, but he understands him.
Photo: Barbora Reichová/kanoe.cz
Gabriela Satková with her European silver from Paris.
“Top sport, although it is a job like any other, in order to function well, it must be done with love and above all it must be fun. Gabče no longer brought the much-needed fun, so she decided to end this stage of her life and move on to the next life path,” he said and wished Satková good luck.
“Gabča has had a great career and I am very happy that I could spend the last four seasons with her and experience the many successes she has achieved during that time. Of course, it may seem that she ended early, but by starting to collect great successes already in her junior years, she has lived an awful lot on the water,” stated her coach Cvikl.
