Mgr. Luděk Bohman

"Actually, the very next year, in sixty-ninth year, I was already firmly in the national team, was the European Championships in Athens. We went there and for the first time we saw a tartan, we hadn't had one yet. In the relay, we were in the starting line-up, Demeč was not there yet, Dionys Szegedi was running, a big guy, perfect for the second leg. I ran the 100 and the 200, in both of which I only made it to the semifinals. In the 200 I just missed the final, Jirka Kynos got there and then he was fifth. Recently I was reminiscing about why I didn't make it. It was crazy hot in Athens. I'm a bit of an albino, I had a hard time with it. It was so hot and we were saving money, we weren't in an air-conditioned hotel, there wasn't even a canteen, food was carted in, we had terrible food. And what the hell, we were living by the airport. And we had planes landing over the hotel. We'd watch them, we'd see their bellies a hundred meters above the hotel. And one after the other, one after the other. We'd dip our sheets in the water to cool off a little bit, and that's when the race was on. I think our competitors were probably in much better hotels with air conditioning. Or I don't know."

"In Stromovka we had graduates with us, they were university students, they had a freer regime, so they could sleep at home. I think it was from Sunday to Monday. One of the graduates came in the morning and said, 'I have uncle, he has got power, something is happening, the Russians are occupying us here, they're already landing.' We were asleep, not knowing anything. When he woke us up in the morning, we heard planes. The next day, Stromovka was already full of tanks, they were occupying everything, looking for places to take hold. They forbade us to go anywhere, even the commander said, 'If you want to go out, change into sweatpants, so you can be in civilian clothes.' We went to Wenceslas Square, we saw the whole Wenceslas Square covered with posters, people were writing them."

"My coach also thought I could be a high jumper. But I stayed at 176 centimetres, I didn't even have that then. He himself wasn't very tall either, the trend was to make taller guys. I wasn't, so I was destined to be a sprinter. There was the Havlas Memorial, they named it after an athlete. I did the race, it wasn't even a sprint. It was on an island, about a 500-meter race. It seemed too long to me, I sat on a chair before the start so I wouldn't get too tired. I didn't even know how to warm up. And now there were guys getting in who were already in school, already had chest hair. I was still in elementary school, I was a pigeon. I started out cautiously, I don't know, I was in the middle of the field. When we hit the home straight, it was quite long, I was third. I was still running beautifully and I ended up first. That was my first success and it definitely decided that I was going to be a runner."