sports

Prague marathon superior to NY marathon? / Je prazsky maraton lepsi nez ten v NY?

prague marathon image

PS: This article was written before the Boston  marathon bombing happened. My prayers go to all of the people involved in it :( .

Radio Praha did a very nice article on the history of the Prague marathon. I do NOT run marathons myself (I think such tortures belong to places like hell :) ) but my doctor keeps talking about it so I figured I may as well get educated in this arena.

The person behind this whole thing is an Italian businessman Carlo Capalbo who has been living in Prague for over 20 years. His friend, an Olympic gold medalist and a winner of the Boston and New York marathons, came to visit him in Prague and gave him the idea to start a marathon here. Carlo explains: “In order to do a marathon you need a background, and Prague is a fantastic background. You should have a sporting tradition, and this country has a great legacy from Emil Zatopek…I called Mr. Zatopek and together we went to see the mayor. Or course, the people ad the administration were completely shocked, because they did not know what a marathon was. For them, a marathon was 100 people sweating and running through the fields.” [click to continue…]

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Tagged as: Prague, sports

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ECO-friendly Czech Republic: Multilevel garage for bicycles / Ekologicke Cechy: parkovaci dum pro kola

I knew that the Czech Republic is very bicycle-friendly but I had no idea stuff like this was going on – czech this out! A city in the Czech Republic called Hradec Kralove decided to built a huge muli-level, super ecological and super hi-tech garage for bikes. Here are the features:

  • it can take up to 116 bikes
  • bike will be automatically taken up by an elevator and automatically parked in its assigned spot
  • bike will be safe from bad weather and thieves

Any biker will be able to park his bike there for only 5 Czech crowns which is a very good price.

CZ: Vzdycky jsem si byla vedoma toho, ze Ceska republika je velmi vstricna vuci cyklistum. Cyklisticke stezky existuji snad vsude, divim se, ze jedna z nich nevede pres stred Staromaku ;) . Nasledujici clanek me ale opravdu (mile) zaskocil. V Hradci Kralove totiz stavi cely garazovy dum pro kola! Jak to bude fungovat? Kolo automaticky dopravi na misto vytah. Nejen ze bude chranene od spatneho pocasi, ale lupicove si tu taky ani neskrtnou. Garaz bude moci udrzet az 116 kol. A cena za parkovani? Pouhych 5 korun!

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Tagged as: ecology, sports, travel

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September 7th – one of the worst days in the history of hockey / 7. zari bude zaznamenany u hokejistu jako jeden z nejhorsich dnu

September 7th will going to be remembered as a tragic day  for all of the hockey fans out there.

On this day a Russian plane carrying some of the best hockey players in the world, crashed into a riverbank only a few minutes after taking off. The crash killed 43 people – 27 players of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl team (3 of them were Czechs and one was Slovak), 2 coaches and 7 club officials. [click to continue…]

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Tagged as: bad news, sports

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Giant lake Milada – a new tourist attraction? / Obri jezero Milada – nova turisticka atrakce?

A giant Czech man-made lake Milada (located in the northern part of the Czech Republic) may be a ready-to-use tourist attraction by the year 2013. It came to life after a deserted coal pit was filled with 35 thousand million liters of water and flooded three former villages.

Milada is not the only such lake. It is one of the other 3 lakes which were created the same way. Water re-cultivation appears to be an inexpensive way how to beautify the land which was devastated by coal mining.

The locals hope the site to become another Macha’s lake, a place of leisure, filled with thousands of swimmers, dock yards, hotels and cyclists. All this will depend on whether the local community has the money to fund these recreational projects or not.

However, the lake has also a couple of drawbacks. Since it is located in a giant pit, the wind is almost non-existent, which will discourage yachtsmen from coming. The banks are also quite unstable, causing frequent mini-land slides. What is more is that the area still has coal deposits underground (about 100 million tons), which is about 2 to 3 years worth of supply for the whole Czech Republic. [click to continue…]

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Tagged as: ecology, sports, tourism

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Ode to Czechs / Oda na Cechy

I don’t want to sound like I am bragging but I came to the conclusion that the Czechs (and of course the Slovaks too) tend to have many talents. I don’t mean just in the field of music (hence the saying “Co Cech, to muzikant”, meaning “Every Czech is a musician”) or handy-work (hence the saying “Cesi maji zlate rucicky”, meaning “Czechs have golden hands”), I mean overall, like we are some kind of a resurrected Renaissance nation ;0)
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Tagged as: children, communism, music, my childhood, sports

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To the gulag with you, landlubber!! / Do gulagu s tebou, ty pozemska kryso!!

I put my daughter Hahna into swimming lessons this year and boy, does the smell of the pool bring memories! It may be embarrassing to admit but I learned how to swim when I was 9 (!!) years old. We did have mandatory swimming classes ever since I was in kindergarten but they did not seem to help. Years and years of training and no results. You can imagine the communist government was not pleased with me. In fact, I am surprised they have not sent me to gulags or somewhere even worse where they deal with the ‘slower’ individuals!

I do have a good excuse, however. Those years of swimming were pure hell. You want a proof? How about if I told you that every Thursday morning my mom would wake me up – it was still dark out – to inform me to get up because it was time for my swimming class. The next thing I would do is threw up. I threw up EVERY Thursday because I was so scared of those darn classes! [click to continue…]

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Tagged as: communism, humor, my childhood, sports

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Czech and Slovak hockey is in trouble! / Cesti a slovensti hokejiste maji problem…

Czech NHL google imageWhile it is a well-known fact that the Czechs and Slovaks are phenomenal hockey players, the NHL draft for this year shows otherwise:

CZ: Cesi a Slovaci jsou velmi nadani na mnohe sporty, kde hokej je definitivne jeden z nich. Letosni vybery do NHL to bohuzel ale vubec neilustruji:

‘The situation in the Czech Republic and Slovakia is sad. Virtually no prospects are playing in their leagues and only a hand full play in the Canadian League. This is an area of concern for hockey.’

Even if you are not exactly a hockey fan, the rest of the article is worth reading (click here).

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Tagged as: sports

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Flying babies on the rise! / Letajici miminka!

flying baby google imageThe American moms affirm the trust relationship with their babies through breastfeeding on demand, while some Czech parents do it by juggling their little ones in the air. What do I mean by that? They take a parent-baby course which is called “Baby flying”.  The mother (or the dad) hold on to the baby’s arms/legs and variously twist them in the air, all to the sound of loud, dancing music. The course instructor, Blanka Kolarova-Sudikova, claims that besides affirming trust in between him and the parent, baby-flying helps with other problems such as if the baby is colicky or too hyperactive.

This unusual course has had so far about 1,500 graduates and numbers are growing. Only the doctors don’t like it one bit. They say that it can simulate the so-called “Shaken baby syndrome”, which leaves a serious health defect on a baby. [click to continue…]

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Tagged as: children, sports, weird stuff

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Czechs are the world champions in hockey! / Cesi jsou mistri sveta v hokeji!

Czech hockey champions 2010 / www.ceskenoviny.cz imageAfter an unnerving match this afternoon the Czechs beat the Russians 2-1. It truly is amazing since many of the key members of the Czech team live abroad and play professionally with other teams (i.e. Jaromir Jagr currently plays for Avangard Omsk in the Kontinental Hockey League) and have a very little time to practice together as a team.

As my dad said it would be  pure luck if they beat the all-powerful Russian team and it looks like they got very lucky!!! But I am sure the team’s amazing talent played a role as well ;0)

So to summon it up, the Czechs are the kings, Russians took a 2nd place, Sweden is 3rd and Germany 4th. [click to continue…]

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Tagged as: celebrities, sports

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Martina Navratilova has breast cancer /Martina Navratilova ma rakovinu prsu

Martina Navratilova www.people.com imageA 53-year-old Czech-born tennis celebrity Martina Navratilova was diagnosed with breast cancer. Since the disease was diagnosed early the prognosis to a completer recovery is excellent. “I cried when I found out about this. It knocked me on my ass, really. I feel so in control of my life and my body, and then this comes, and it’s completely out of my hands.”

The nine-time Wimbledon champion was fortunately diagnosed with a non-invasive form of cancer, called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which was confined to the milk ducts. Navratilova had a lumpectomy and will start 6 weeks of radiation therapy in May. “It was the best-case scenario you could imagine for detecting breast cancer,” says Dr Mindy Nagle, Martina’s ob gyn as well as her best friend. [click to continue…]

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Tagged as: celebrities, health, sports

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