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| Czech star Petr Svoboda on his way to winning the men's 60m hurdles final on Friday. |
Recently minted European Indoor 60m hurdles champion Petr Svoboda joked in the wake of his success that his home town might help celebrate his triumph by allowing him to drive and sit on his tractor.
We don’t know just yet just what the good people of the rural southern Czech community of Budisov will grant their returning hero, who has a full licence to drive a tractor, but suffice to say he could probably steer an armoured tank through the main street and no one would mind.
Yesterday here at the Palais Omnisport de Paris-Bercy Svoboda finally delivered his maiden major championship title at the age of 26 and while bigger goals beckon a serious case can be argued that the affable Czech is the next great European sprint hurdler.
Why? Well, look at the facts. This indoor season he is unbeaten with seven wins out of seven in finals. He stands third on the 2011 World Lists for the 60m hurdles - behind the US duo David Oliver and Aries Merritt - and only two athletes have ran a quicker winning time than Svoboda’s 7.49 to take the European Indoor 60m hurdles title – Briton’s Colin Jackson the current World 60m hurdles record holder and Thomas Munkelt, the 1980 Olympic 110m hurdles champion from East Germany.
“I am surprised and very proud to be in such company,” said Svoboda when learning of the statistics. “I have never spoken to him (Jackson) about this event but I know before Barcelona one of the main events Colin wanted to see was the 110m hurdles and he said that was because of me. I haven’t spoken to him today but I saw him up on the BBC stand.”
Which brings us to Barcelona and last summer’s European Championships. The Czech athlete went into the men’s 110m hurdles as the fastest in the field and clear favourite. Everything went according to plan for the first six hurdles, he made a decent start, built up a decisive lead then he ploughed through hurdle seven, badly lost his momentum and finished sixth. He was devastated.
This indoor season has been about redemption and under the wily coaching of Ludvik Svoboda (no relation) - the man who guided Ales Hoffer of the old Czechoslovakia to the European Indoor 60m hurdles title in 1988 - the preparation meticulous. He has planned his season carefully, so as not to over-race Svoboda but crucially give himself a decent rest period between races. The plan has worked immaculately, although as Svoboda admitted it almost backfired in the final.
“I had a flash back to Barcelona when I hit the second hurdle, but I got back on track and saw the finish line and everything was okay,” he explained. “If I hadn’t hit that hurdle I think I could have run close to my Czech record of 7.44.”
Confident and charming, Svoboda is a breath of fresh air to the European hurdling scene. Standing at 1.95m tall the former decathlete is the boyfriend of Czech international pole vaulter Jirina Ptacnikova, who finished fifth in the 2010 World Indoor Championships, and he is one of the rising stars of not just athletics but sport in general in his native land.
A huge movie fan he helped motivate himself for the competition in Paris by watching Invictus the story of the South African rugby team’s heart rendering success at the 1995 World Cup under the presidency of Nelson Mandela.
Yet Svoboda knows if his own story is to one day reach the big screen his career demands way more success and he is fully aware of his position in the pecking order of the global sprint hurdles elite.
“There are many hurdlers around and there are many around with better times than me,” he admitted. “The aim now is to reach the World Championship final in Daegu. For now, yes, this is the best moment of my career but I hope better times are to come.”
On the evidence of what we have seen here in the French capital few would bet against it.