Congratulations to our students who gave their all in Paris!

Thirteen students from Charles University were among the Czech representatives at this year's Olympic Games in Paris. Although they didn’t finish on the podium, some came close and all made a mark!

Amálie Švábíková (right) after returning from the Olympic Games in Paris.

Simply making it to the Olympics is an exceptional feat for any athlete, and they often deliver extraordinary performances in the face of huge competition. Like Amálie Švábíková, a student of the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport of Charles University, who reached the final in the pole vault and improved the Czech record to 480 centimetres by five centimetres! The overall result was 5th place.

Among the top ten were also rowers Anna Šantrůčková (Faculty of Physical Education and Sport) and Lenka Lukšová. From the double skiff race they advanced straight to the semi-finals, but there they finished only in fourth place, which was not enough for the final. However, they won the final 8th place in the last race. Anička has so far only had experience from the Youth Olympic Games, in Buenos Aires 2018 she won a silver medal with Eliška Podrazilová.

Kateřina Švíková from the Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University also had her first full-fledged Olympics, and was the only windsurfer from a landlocked country. Nevertheless, she fought bravely - after the basic 14 heats she was the fifth best and advanced to the quarterfinals. She finished sixth in that heat, which was not enough to advance any further and resulted in 9th place overall. The sailing races were held in Marseille and the "rookie tax" was paid by another of our representatives Zosia Burska (Faculty of Physical Education and Sport) and Sára Tkadlecová (Faculty of Mathematics and Physics), who took the penultimate 19th place in the 49er FX category.

Medal hopes were pinned on the world champions in beach volleyball, but the pair of Ondřej Perušič and David Schweiner failed to win in their second consecutive Olympics. Three years ago in Tokyo, they were stopped by health problems when Ondřej Perušič, now a student at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, contracted Covid. This year they were both healthy and in the group stage they had a record of two wins and one defeat, but in the eighth round they were stopped in their tracks by the Dutch team.

Veronika Novotná from the Faculty of Science of the Charles University had a great competition in the modern pentathlon, finishing fourth overall after the opening fencing. After the parkour and swimming she was still in fifth place in the semi-final group, but things went south in the pistol shooting and she failed to place among the 18 finalists. Another modern pentathlete , Martin Vlach, a student of the Faculty of Law of Charles University, who was fifth at the previous Olympics in Tokyo, did not make it to the final either.

We are proud of how each and every student did and that they represented their country.

Overall, the Czech team brought back five medals from the Olympic Games in Paris. A sensational bronze was won by the fencing team, which surprised the home mega-favourites, while the javelin thrower Nikola Ogrodnikova finished third. Sprint canoeists Josef Dostál and Martin Fuksa won their events, and the mixed doubles category was won by tennis players Kateřina Siniaková and Tomáš Macháč.