The Olympic Games in Paris will return to their shiny form without the coronavirus restrictions that marked the Summer Games in Tokyo three years ago and the Winter Olympics in Beijing the year before last. The French organizers located most of the sports venues in the historical backdrops of the center of the metropolis. 112 Czech athletes will participate in the sports festival, for which a record 8.6 million tickets were sold by July according to the organizers, in Paris and other host cities after the withdrawal of the injured tennis player Markéta Vondroušová. Despite the ongoing war in Ukraine, 31 athletes from Russia and friendly Belarus will compete under a neutral flag at the Olympics.
The Olympic competitions start today with the first matches in football and rugby sevens. On Thursday, the first Czech representatives will be in action, world champion Marie Horáčková and her representative colleague Adam Li will complete the qualification in archery. The ceremony will take place on Friday from 19:30. The organizers have prepared a unique format with a parade of expeditions on boats that sail through the city center on the Seine.
The Czech expedition will follow up on the record eleven medals from Tokyo. All Czech Olympic winners from past Games are nominated. The gold medals will be defended by judoka Lukáš Krpálek, water slalom athlete Jiří Prskavec, trap shooter Jiří Lipták and tennis players Kateřina Siniaková and Barbora Krejčíková in doubles.
Bookmakers contacted by ČTK shortly before the start of the Games estimated that Czech athletes could take home five to ten medals from Paris. Two or three of them could be golden. Nielsen’s Gracenote Sports analysis predicted three gold, two silver and four bronze medals for the Czech colors. Water slalom skier Prskavec, speed canoeist Martin Fuksa and women’s tennis doubles should win the most valuable metals.
Just like eight years ago in Rio de Janeiro, no team sport qualified for the Olympics in Czech colors. The most numerous Czech sport is athletics, which has great hope for a medal in Jakub Vadlejch, the defending silver medalist.
In total, the Czech representatives will present themselves in Paris in 23 sports. After the athletes, the largest group is made up of representatives of canoeing, of whom there are eleven. Six were nominated in speed canoeing, where four-time Olympic medalist Josef Dostál and reigning world champion in the kilometer Martin Fuksa are not missing. Thanks to Anežka Paloudová, there is a woman in speed canoeing after 16 years. Five water slalom skiers will go to Paris, silver canoeist Lukáš Rohan will defend the medal next to gold kayaker Prskavac in Tokyo. Water slalom skiers have one more competitor than usual thanks to the premiere of kayak cross, in which Tereza Fišerová was nominated as a specialist.
In total, ten and a half thousand athletes from 206 countries will compete in Paris. The United States of America has the largest contingent, with 592 athletes who came to defend their colors. Host France has nineteen fewer Olympians.
Olympic medals will be contested at 35 sports venues. The vast majority of them are in Paris, but other French cities will also experience the Olympic atmosphere. The shooters will be in Chaterauroux, the yacht regatta will take place in the port city of Marseille, and the surfers will be on the Pacific island of Tahiti.
The Olympic flame over Paris will go out on August 11.
Source: www.tyden.cz
