During the 15th annual ČEZ Lipno Sport Festival at Lipno lake, Kateřina Neumannová and her 23-year-old daughter Lucie participated in a 20-kilometer mountain bike race featuring 457 meters of elevation gain, according to local media reports. While the 53-year-old Olympic champion secured first place among women with a time of 51:45, her daughter finished 22nd out of 160 competitors in 56:45 despite suffering a high-speed crash that left her bleeding from the knees and elbows.
A Family Milestone on the Shumava Trails
For Kateřina Neumannová, who made history in 1996 as the first Czech athlete to compete in both the Winter and Summer Olympic Games—finishing 18th in mountain biking at the Atlanta Olympics—sharing a race course with her daughter marked a long-awaited milestone. According to race accounts, Lucie had avoided cycling for most of her youth before recently requesting a gravel bike.
“She, who hated cycling from an early age, expressed a desire to have a bike at the age of 23,” Kateřina Neumannová told reporters. “I reacted enthusiastically and she already has one. She requested a gravel bike. For the first time, we jointly accomplished what I had always desired—that we would go on trips together around Šumava on skis or bikes.”
The Crash and the Final Six Kilometers
The 20-kilometer course tested participants with challenging terrain, including mud, tree roots, and steep descents. Lucie Neumannová recounted a chaotic sequence on the trail where she navigated past a fallen rider before misjudging a ditch at high speed.
“I had it behind me and took a pretty good tumble,” Lucie Neumannová said, describing how she clipped another rider’s handlebars on a descent before surviving a muddy section filled with roots. “Then there was a ditch like that and I didn’t want to drive into it. So I leaned and leaned until I took a pretty bad spill in the downhill at quite a high speed, hitting my arm and knee.”
Despite sustaining abrasions and bleeding from her knees, the younger Neumannová refused to abandon the event. Lying on the ground, she told herself that failing to finish was not an option. “I wiped away a tear, got back on the bike, and finished the last six kilometers,” she said, adding with a grimace that the subsequent medical disinfection “really stung.”
Crossing the Finish Line
Mother and daughter reunited at the finish line, where the initial family banter quickly turned to first-aid care. “Hey Luci, good, but mom has already been at the finish line for five minutes,” Kateřina joked before noticing her daughter’s blood-stained legs and scraped elbow. When asked if she had fallen, Kateřina brushed it off with the composure of an elite competitor, remarking that scrapes are simply part of cycling.
Organized as part of the ČEZ Lipno Sport Festival—where Kateřina serves as the event director—the race drew 160 participants. Czech media outlets reported that the overall festival schedule also featured related sporting events, including the Czech Tour cycling competition won by American August, with the final stage claimed by an Italian competitor and the top Czech finishing seventh overall.
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