Already as a boy he dreamed big. “That I was going to compete in the World Cup, that it would be great to go to the Olympics. I didn’t care what it was,” smiles Jakub Hroneš. “And my dad keeps banging it on my head now. That it’s really thick.”
Dense is the word that fits it.
Twenty-one years and a discipline as cool as it gets: freestyle snowboarding and Big Air. Soon in the race of life – Thursday evening in Livigno. Even on the eve of the official opening of the Olympics, one of the most notable medal contenders of the Czech team for the Milano Cortina 2026 Games will take part in the qualifying event.
Because Jakub Hroneš had already invented and especially jumped a trick that no one before him had managed.
Because, even as a young twenty-something, he seems calm, mature, ready for success.
Because snowboarding is still “dense”, and in terms of the amount of hard work and determination, it has long been completely comparable to other sports.
“In Nagano 1998, a lot of people boycotted the races, they didn’t want to identify with the fact that the snowboarding community should have rules from international committees. Since then, things have moved tremendously,” Hroneš describes. “The lifestyle has stayed the same, but snowboarding is definitely more of a sport. That’s how we all approach it.”
Big Air at the Olympics | Sports NW
Foto: Red Bull Content Pool
Czech snowboarder Jakub Hroneš.
The qualification of the discipline, in which Jakub Hroneš is among the world’s best, will start on Thursday, February 5 at 19:30, i.e. before the opening ceremony of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics. The final race is then scheduled for Saturday, February 7 again from 7:30 p.m. in Livigno.
Of course, he knows the most famous Olympics in Czech history only from stories, Hroneš is from the year 2004. In Nagano, he experienced a snowboarding premiere marred by the fact that the Canadian champion Ross Rebagliati lost the gold due to a positive test for marijuana (although in the end only temporarily).
Especially the freestyle disciplines, in which Hroneš excels, had a wild reputation. A joint for a nagan champion seems like the biggest cliché possible, but that’s exactly what happened. Long gone, as well as the former disdain for events with five circles in the logo.
“The sport is moving forward so quickly that in order to consistently perform to keep us at the top, we have to adapt,” says Hroneš. “We still have other big events like the X-Games, which have more of a cultural value to the snowboarding world. But in competitive snowboarding, the Olympics are the most.”
As in his childhood imagination that becomes reality.
He also played football and chess
If the natives of Prague are “baptized by the Vltava” really a rare phenomenon, Hroneš elevates it even more. In the Czech Republic, it is a complete rarity that one of the top athletes from winter disciplines was born and raised in Špindlerův Mlýn.
“Dad is also born Špindlák,” he smiles. “There aren’t many of us like that, I’m glad I can be one of them. And I think there are few nicer places than Spindle.”
The most prestigious domestic mountain resort is changing beyond recognition, Hroneš’s childhood, on the contrary, seems to be going back in time. No early specialization. No drill. No ambitious parents.
Skis were of course offered in Špindlerův Mlýn. “All my friends skied. A lot of them played hockey, I was able to play hockey with them somewhere on the ice rink, but I didn’t do it competitively. I played football, I went cross-country skiing a lot, in the summer I went for cross-country runs, where I quickly found out that I wasn’t an endurance player… We also rode bikes, I played chess for a while,” he recalls.
A good inspiration for those who also want to lead the offspring to sport.
Foto: Red Bull Content Pool
The Big Air discipline is contested right at the beginning of the Olympics.
“Our people let me choose. I got hooked on skiing, I found it tough, it was quite good for me,” recounts Hroneš. “I associated snowboarding with the fact that we went on it twice a year to the glacier with mom and dad. That I didn’t have to get up early in the morning, I didn’t have to compete. It was a weekend sport, but it was still there because I enjoyed it a little more.”
And so between the 13th and 14th years, when it was no longer possible to pursue everything, he made a decision. Unexpected for many.
“I didn’t have a racing career in snowboarding, it was spontaneous,” he explains.
Spontaneous – and happy decision. After all, thanks to him, he put on the Olympic collection and went to Livigno.
Olympiad? Another practice run
Jakub Flejšar is also part of Hroneš’s team, a man who connects seemingly unrelated worlds. The artistic sculptor nicknamed Flaška was one of Eva Adamczyková’s key collaborators when she won the Olympics in Sochi 2014 under her maiden name Samková.
It also helps Hroneš with tuning his mind.
Czech unique. How Hroneš surprised the world | Sports NW
Switch boardslide switch triple underflip 1170. What can you imagine under that? “A triple somersault from the railing backwards is easier to explain,” says Jakub Hroneš about his contribution to world snowboarding.
Which is not an exaggeration: He spent two years working on a unique trick that no one had managed before him. With the support of Red Bull, the traditional patron of similarly daring stunts across adrenaline and freestyle sports. “The first year, I had a good fall twice. The second year, it came out on maybe the tenth attempt, but I had already fallen easily under control,” he smiles.
His act caused an uproar.
“We kept it very much under wraps the whole time,” describes Hroneš. “A lot of people were enthusiastic, although of course you’ll find some people who disagree. But 99 percent of the time I had a good response, people remembered it. The great thing about snowboarding is that it’s not just a pure performance sport, it’s still about working within the community. It’s about finding a balance between being a tough racer and a good guy that everyone wants to shoot with.”
“With Cuba, we talk a lot about things as they are,” he says. “I try not to be under extra stress, to think about snowboarding as simply as possible. It helps me tremendously that I do everything as best as I can. Then when I stand at the start, I say to myself: You, I couldn’t have done more, I have no regrets, no negative thoughts in my head. I’m calmer. Everything I’ve done up to this point, I’ve done right, this is just another training ride.”
Sports stars at the top of their careers say exactly such sentences. Focus only on what you really have control over. Don’t get carried away by success, don’t get depressed by defeats.
“I’m set that way in general, not only in snowboarding. I’ve also seen it from my parents, they’re strong in it, I can find simplicity in things,” explains Hroneš. “Sometimes it may seem like I don’t care about a lot of things, but… In the finale, a lot of things don’t matter.”
Would-be wise personal trainers would immediately pull out expressions like mindfulnessbut unlike pure theorists, Hroneš lives these principles. Ever since my teenage years.
“Even with Evka (Adamczyková) and my other sports friends and role models, I had the opportunity to discuss things that are connected with the Olympics and which often distract a lot from reality,” explains Hroneš. “The people around me make it a lot easier for me. I take things as they come, I don’t get ahead of myself. I’m there to compete in the Olympics for the top bars, but I’m not going there thinking that anything but a big result will be a failure.”
Hroneš has an unusual perspective on the twenty-one-year-old young man, but in this direction he is also based on a pragmatic view of the surroundings.
Foto: Allwyn Champs
Jakub Hroneš.
“In my discipline, the biggest success is qualifying, out of a hundred guys from the World Cup, thirty of us get to the Olympics. You just have to have a good day and anyone of those thirty can win,” he claims.
Therefore, he too. He has trained, the track will be an important factor, but even more important is what they work on with Fleishar during long conversations and perhaps during meditations.
“The head gives power to the party, 80 percent for me,” he admits. “We can all do tricks, it will be decided by who can give his best performance at the moment when the judges give points for him.”
In an arc – just not in the snow, but in the narrative – we return to the fact that his mind is not tired, on the contrary. He lives by snowboarding, even though he has had difficult times, for example when he tore his kidney and spleen during summer training in Australia.
Even that didn’t stop Hroneš. He knows it was his choice, no one else’s.
“I got all the cards available from ours and I could choose my favorite,” he says. “I know boys and girls whose parents said to themselves when they were five or six years old: Well, they’re going to be the best in the world. They’re terrible drillers, but the margin for error is so small in our sport that out of fifteen of them, we’ll be happy for one Olympic snowboarder – and the rest will have a spoiled childhood and a spoiled relationship with their parents.”
How I Met a Billionaire
The Olympic spectacle in Livigno is a career highlight for Hroneš, but that does not mean that there should be a void after it. Not at all!
“I’m living a childhood dream come true and I know it’s not normal,” he says. “I have great friends, a great family, a great snowboarding team. I meet new people, at races and on trips I experience things that shape me and move me forward. And I can make a full living from snowboarding, I don’t have to go to any part-time jobs.”
In his case, the main sponsor is synonymous with the entire industry. Beverage giant Red Bull built its image largely on the promotion of adrenaline sports. While the young footballer usually doesn’t decide which company his favorite club’s jersey is from, Hroneš offers a different memory: “I always pictured myself wearing a Burton snowboard and a helmet with the Red Bull logo. In our world of action sports, that’s the most.”
In addition, he is in the program of the Prague Olympics, he has support from the ski association and the Allwyn Champs project (formerly Sazka Champs), in which the lottery giant, together with the Czech Olympic Committee, is looking for the most promising future champions.
How a native of Špindl sees his city | Sports NW
“There are two sides to it. I am gradually realizing that I personally prefer Špindl in the summer, not in the winter. But I grew up here and of course I perceive that tourism is important – Špindl exists because people come here because it is beautiful here. Which is to the point, I also see it in other mountain resorts all over the world. Only in a small town and without tourists it could not work, we have to accept that. And thanks to all of this, Špindl has a lot In addition, I’m usually not at home in the winter, when it’s the craziest, so it doesn’t limit me in any way.”
“A great opportunity to get to know new people, new places and new things, which could open more doors for me in the future,” explains Hroneš.
Thanks to this, he had the chance to meet one of the richest Czechs and the owner (not only) of Allwyn, Karl Komárek. “My dad always says that people like this are the most interesting to talk to, because they have the most to say. It was nice and I hope there will be more meetings like this,” he wishes.
A classic small talk took place between Hroneš and the dollar billionaire Komárek, while the young athlete would be interested in many details. After all, he is simultaneously studying business at the University of New York in Prague.
Foto: Red Bull Content Pool
Jakub Hroneš in action.
“I’ve always thought it’s important not to be stupid,” he says. “My parents were emphatic with me and my brothers that sport is not everything. Especially in snowboarding, the career is not the longest, it usually ends around thirty and then people move outside the racing sphere, to filming, to video projects. My focus is sports marketing. It is good to know more about it in the future, because I would like to stay with the sport that I like.”
Also because sometimes even more interesting things happen outside the race track.
“Snowboarding has a huge advantage in that it is not monotonous. You can be a brutal professional, which is no different from alpine skiers in terms of drill, and that’s how I’m set right now. You can ride just for fun – or film incredible projects on huge peaks in Alaska, these guys are much denser than us,” Hroneš outlines his possible future.
The only thing that is certain is that he will want to choose it himself. Like snowboarding once, which took him all the way to the Olympics.
“I still don’t know exactly what to expect from it,” he shrugs. “But I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve always wanted to go there.”
