0,12 - again!

Czech M4x almost made impossible possible at their olympic qualifiacation race on tuesday in Luzern. Boat with Vitasek, Houska, Ourednicek and Jirka lost to French M4x, stroked by olympic champion Adrien Hardy, by 0,12 seconds, after a stunning race. Behind the scenes I see huge improvement of especially Houska and Ourednicek, who during my early time in Czech were brutal workhorses, but so brutal on their technical skills that it hurted the movement of the boats. Young men have improved and are closing the gap to the absolute top. They lost with the same margin as the Finnish LW2x lost the qualification on 2004. I hope their careers will evolve the same way as the Finnish LW2x results evolved after 2004. Czech sculling has 4 years time to work with these guys + Jirka, Vitasek and the U23 M4x, Sterbak, Basl, Buzrla and Andrle. Andrle and Basl raced well at M2x, they were much better in Luzern than In Blegrad, their speed being not much off from the qualifying boats. I can only hope that the Czech administration is clever enough to keep the current coaches working with the group, and give their support to the athletes. I am conviced that if they do so, results will follow. This group has all my sympathy, having seen the race yesterday. 0,12 seconds is not much, but this time it ment a lot.