Miroslav Dvořák Amongst the Favourites at the Summer National Championships in Nordic Combined
Monday September 7 2009 02:37 PM
The Czech Nordic Combined team will be participating in the highlight of the domestic season on Wednesday the 9th of September. The summer national championships will take place in the Liberec sports grounds at Ještěd and Vesec in the categories of seniors, juniors and children. The championship is organised by the civic group EYOWF 2011 in cooperation with Dukla Liberec and will include international participation as it is part of the FIS tournament in Nordic Combined, replacing the traditional Continental Cup.
The competitors will take part in the ski jump with artificial conditions on HS 134 in the morning, followed by roller skiing in the afternoon on an asphalt circuit on the Vesec 10 km trail. All the leading figures of the domestic team will be competing including the elite group of four, Miroslav Dvořák, Pavel Churavý, Tomáš Slavík and Aleš Vodseďálek. The national team has just returned this weekend from training in the environs of Lillehammer in Norway. Their coach Luděk Šablatura was positive about their experience as well as the health and condition of his team members.
Luděk Šablatura praised their Norwegian stay as follows, “We prepared in Lillehammer along with the Norwegians, Swiss and Americans including the world champions Lodwick and Demong. We primarily focused on ski jumping. Our boys definitely improved their technique and kept up with their competitors. In the final competition we had quality performances on the ski jumps from five different distances with Mirek Dvořák finishing second, Tomáš Slavík fourth, Aleš Vodseďálek sixth and Pavel Churavý ninth.”
Miroslav Dvořák was the most successful in the summer Grand Prix out of the Czech combined group capturing the seventh place. He will also be defending his title from last year in Liberec which he obtained under problematic weather conditions in Harrachov. Tomáš Slavík will in all probability provide the toughest competition as Pavel Churavý, the Czech number one last season, experiences difficulties with roller skies.
Their trainer expressed his hopes for this year as follows: “Mirek Dvořák will probably be the main favourite for obtaining the national title, although we cannot exaggerate the significance of these results. We are still in full preparations for the highpoint, this being the Winter Olympic Games next year in February in Vancouver. According to our tests our athletes are at least comparable with last season and I hope they will display continuing improvement.”
Apart from the Czech combined team, representative of another five countries will take part in Liberec: Kazakhstan, Germany, Austria, Slovakia and the Ukraine. The largest, twelve-member domestic group will be from Dukla Liberec, while half that number will be from LSK Lomnice nad Popelkou.
Competition Schedule:
Ski Jump Ještěd: 9 am - 10:30 am official training on HS 134 (2 jumps)
10:30 am - 11 am practice round
11 am - 12 noon competitive round
Race Vesec: 3:15 pm – 4:15 pm official training
4:30 pm 10 km race
Results Announced 5:30 pm