Our club enjoyed a very successful Czech Freestyle Championships on Saturday 9 February. Our swimmers brought ten medals out of the Svratka in Brno-Bystrc. Only host club Fides beat us in the club medal table: with the same total number of medals, they had more golds.
Our most successful category was the men’s under-40 750 metres. It looked more like an open I. PKO club championship, with nine of the fourteen starters wearing our colours. We converted that numerical advantage into a clean sweep: Petr Tomášek, Petr Hubal and Artur Kubica, in that order. It was the only category in which all three medals went to one club.
Another gold came to Braník from the men’s Masters A 750 metres, where Zdeněk Tlamicha successfully defended his title.
The most controversial event was the women’s Masters B 500 metres. Irena Lichá and Eva Havlíková initially placed fourth and fifth, and those results stood through the awards ceremony. Afterwards, however, we protested the eligibility of the second- and third-placed swimmers, whose participation depended on an unannounced change to qualifying standards that had themselves been published more than a month late. The race jury unanimously upheld the protest, giving Irena silver and Eva bronze.
We took the same medals, this time without any administrative intervention, in the men’s Masters C 500 metres. Richard Haan won silver and Petr Novák bronze, backed up by Vláďa Kolář in fourth.
A third silver-and-bronze combination came in the men’s Masters D 250 metres: Míša Štěpán finished second and Luboš Valenta third.
While we are a major force in the men’s categories, sometimes leaving no podium space for anyone else, there is still considerable room for improvement among the women. We had no representative in some women’s championship categories. If we address that gap, next time our medal collection could be even larger.
The second Czech championships, in breaststroke, take place on the first Saturday in March. There will be several firsts: they move into winter after always being held in October, and will be staged in Prague for the first time, in Podolí’s outdoor 50-metre pool. Let us hope they are at least as successful for us as the freestyle championships in Brno.
