Emil Coplák

"I remember that because on October 25, the Germans were already pushing into Brezno. Our father, with a tractor and a trailer, climbed into the Brezno barracks, which were already empty, but the doors of the warehouses were ajar. My father was already slowly under fire there, because the Germans were already pushing into Brezno. He took food, fur coats, winter clothing, everything that was needed for the mountains, he took a full trailer of necessary things, even a (field) kitchen. Everything that was there. And then we practically went to Jasenie and from Jasenie to the lumberjack's cabin in Suchá dolina."

„Najprv sme nemali lode, vlastne sme ich nikdy nemali dostatok, tých lodí, to bolo všetko len čo nám niekto v tých časoch mohol podarovať, ako sa povie. Nemohol si každý dovoliť kúpiť loď, ako som si kúpil ja. No a tak tú moju loď drali, drali, a bol som taký blbec, že som si furt kupoval lode, lode, pretože bolo tých športov, ktoré sme robili bolo päť. Jazdili sme najprv rýchlostnú, potom sme jazdili zjazdy a slalom, potom sme jazdili maratóny, vodnú turistiku. No, snažili sme sa vždy nájsť to, aby sme obišli ten mechanizmus, ktorý je, že to poleno, keď nám niekto hodil pod nohy, tak sme ho obišli.“

"For me, the closest thing was speed canoeing, which is what I started with, I bought the kayak and so on, but after that affair, they slowly pulled me out of speed canoeing. Then I found a loophole, so I started running marathons. Because I knew that no one else would be up to it, because it's so hard, it couldn't be any harder. Because when you consider that in the Olympic race, our athletes finish in 4 minutes, and I did 50 kilometers in four hours, you can imagine who put more effort and skill into it in the end."

"That's how it went, I had my stamp made, I made the relevant report to the Ministry of the Interior stating that we were establishing a boating marathon association. So, since it was registered with the Ministry of the Interior, that we made a statute, and so on, that we wanted to organize it competitively, we asked for money from Bratislava. Because we founded a boating marathon association with its headquarters in Žiar nad Hronom and it was the first, the first one that was outside Bratislava. All the sports that exist were based in Bratislava, we were a boating marathon with its headquarters, the Slovak Boating Marathon with its headquarters in Žiar nad Hronom. Extra."

"Near Kharkov, in the village of Veseloye on May 14, 1942, during the offensive led by Khrushchev against Kharkov. The Slovak army was saving Kharkov at the time. The village of Veseloye was about fifteen to twenty kilometers from Kharkov, and it happened there that when the Germans retreated, my father was seriously wounded by a German machine gunner, because he mistook him for a mistake. He wounded my father and my father almost remained on the battlefield. His lungs were shot through. One bullet exited near his spine and his left arm was shot through."