Adolfína Tačová

* 1939

  • “I competed under the name of Baník Ostrava, but originally those were estates of the Sokol. The time went on and in 1989, at the time of the Velvet Revolution, the regime completely collapsed, and the old organizations came back to the floor. Farmers, Sokols, Eagles, all who lost possessions wanted them back. The restitution laws were announced with certain terms and so it worked even in the area of physical education, so we made a request. But prior to that we had to re-create the cooperative, several people established the committee and wrote a complaint to request the property back. It was a wonderful time, and there was such nervousness and awkwardness. I remember that time, because as the system crashed, all the coaches were released (from the ČSTV editor´s note) and then the newly created Czech village in Sokolská offered me the function of County Secretary. Education, I had everything and I did the job professionally. Besides, I went to the gym, but I was no longer a professional coach.”

  • “I remember starting on the balance beam early the next morning. I can't even tell you what I've been through. An absolute concentration. My coach always told me: 'Focus on the first discipline, and don't think about anything else. Think about what you're doing. The step, the jump, the jumping on the tools and then you're on.' I'll tell you it worked. We used a lot of personal psychological training, the one that takes place in the head and does not take place in real life. This was recommended to us by our coach, who was a good psychologist and said, 'Girls, you have to get that thing in your brain. When you fall asleep, you will go through the sequence nicely, three times in a row, from start to finish. I applied it and the fact is that it got stuck in my head and it worked. All four World Championships we passed, no one could afford to fall off the beam. If we fell from the beam, we would not get a medal.”

  • “When we returned home after the war, it was a terrible as the Soviet army that liberated us moved into the playground, not far from our houses. The army was there and they needed to eat and they needed to take the cattle again to feed the army. An officer came and took the cow. That was stressful for my mother, she said, 'How can we handle this?' I have three sisters, we are four girls, two older sisters, one younger, and it was terrible. So the aunt who lived in a house nearby went on to the playground and begged the officer to be kind enough to return the cow to us that there were four children and that we were no rich and that it was our livelihood. He returned the cow to us, which was amazing. Nice memory of that time.”

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    Praha, 26.02.2019

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    media recorded in project Tipsport for Legends
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    Praha, 07.05.2019

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    duration: 01:37:03
    media recorded in project Tipsport for Legends
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I said to myself, I was going to do gymnastics properly or not at all

In 1960 at the Olympics in Rome with the talletst baseball player of the US team
In 1960 at the Olympics in Rome with the talletst baseball player of the US team
photo: archiv pamětnice

Adolfína Tačová was born on April 19, 1939 in Petřkovice near Ostrava to a family of miner and housewife, as the third of four daughters. He is one of the key figures of the golden era of Czechoslovak gymnastics in the 1960s. She started practising the sport in 1954. All her life she practiced in the gym of T. J. Sokol in Moravská Ostrava 1, led by the coach named Miroslav Kojdecký. In 1959 she became an absolute champion of Czechoslovakia in gymnastic octathlon. At that time the world gymnastics was ruled by the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak national team managed to get closer to it. The witness holds a silver medal in the multi-team competition at the Olympic Games in Rome 1960 and the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 1964. She is also a holder of a silver medal in team competition in multi-team in 1958 and 1962. After finishing sports carrier in 1967 she devoted herself to training activities in Ostrava and graduated from the Faculty of Physical Education and Sport of Charles University. At the beginning of the 1980s she worked as a coach of the Italian Gymnastics Team, then as an international referee. After the Velvet Revolution, she worked as secretary of the Moravian-Silesian County, where she dealt with the return of gymnasiums to the Sokolov community. Today (2019) she is honorary president of T. J. Sokol in Moravská Ostrava 1 and is still practicing gymnastics.