Russians killed my brother after the war, says famous athletics coach
Jiří Čechák, together with his twin brother Pavel, was born on 25 March 1938 in Pardubice. His parents, Jana and Vladimír, had two more children, Jiří’s five years older sister Eva and twelve years older brother Vladimír. At the end of the war, his brother Vladimír died tragically, and two years later, his mother also died. His father could not reconcile the care of the children and his multiple jobs, so he sent the twins to an evangelical children’s home in Sobotín. They spent one and a half years there. After the closure of the children’s home, both boys returned home. Jiří Čechák trained as a toolmaker and started working at Tesla in Pardubice. He played sports all his life, playing hockey and football, and in the end, he got a foothold in athletics. After the war, which he spent in Slovakia, he graduated from the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport at Charles University in Prague and started working as a professional coach. He had great success not only as a national decathlon coach but also as an athlete. In 1989, he emigrated to the USA, from where he returned after a year and a quarter. He went to the United States once more for five years, this time with his family. Even in 2023, he was still coaching youth and lived in Staročernsko near Pardubice.