Summer European Youth Olympic Festival 2023

[hckošice 15,984]

17 hours ago, OlympicsFan said:

The time isn't terrible for her age, the two girls ahead of her are both 1 year older. She would be 38th in the american all-time rankings for 13/14 year olds. She has until next year to improve on that ranking. For comparison some of the other girls on that list:

2:18.57 Kate Douglass

2:18.42 Summer McIntosh

2:18.21 Kathleen Baker

2:18.20 Sydney Pickrem

2:17.75 Nathalie Coughlin

2:17.64 Maya DiRado

2:17.48 Claire Weinstein

2:17.21 Elizabeth Beisel

2:17.19 Ariana Kukors

2:16.96 Bella Sims

2:16.28 Regan Smith

 

I think her problem is that slovakian coaches don't know how to produce world-class swimmers and by the time that she will be old enough to go to college, it will probably already be too late for her (since she wasted multiple years of development). For her the best would probably to go to Hungary or even GB. Those two nations know how to produce world class swimmers in the IM. Sadly that doesn't seem like a very realistic option for her, unless her parents are rich ...

 

You have a like from me for the time and effort you probably spent looking for all these times in this post..

 

Yep, that´s one of the main problems of our sport. Our only above level swimmer in the entire history was Martina Moravcová, and only thanks her studies in Dallas. Yes, she was exceptionally talented, but I don´t believe she would have achieved even a third of her successes if she had not gone overseas before.

 

The other main issue is the infrastructure. No money, No fun. I do not know if we have even a single 50m pool in the country, we for sure have only a limited couple of small pools in the biggest cities, I do believe more than half of our population do not even know how to swim (yeah I likely exaggerating here, but you got the point), so it is hard to think high in this sport in such conditions. However,  it is not only in Swimming

 

I could write novels about the lack of money, state support consequently bad coaches, resulting in many young athletes losing motivations early and leaving sport etc..., but Anyway, generally, besides Hockey all our sports education and system is outdated and ineffective. When you look at it, the majority of our "above level" athletes in individual sports come more from the family system, so outside of the "national" system.

[hckošice 15,984]

Final score of mini-team in Maribor, is 2 Golds and 3 Bronzes

 

Mia Pohánková & Soňa Depešová won our second gold of the games, in the Girls Tennis Doubles. Bravo girls, well done !

 

So at the end very successfull EYOF for us, unexpected 3 medals in Judo (well, at least 2 were very unexpected, the gold of Patrícia Tománková was not as much while looking at her season so far, she was predicted as favorite for gold, being world ranking #1 in her class, so thanks god she delivered - which is also quite rare for us), 1 gold in Tennis, marching in the steps of last year EYOF successes of the rising star Renáta Jamrichová and that super shocking bronze in Swimming yesterday.

 

 

Edited July 29, 2023 by hckošice