Jiří Raška

Jiří Raška
Jiří Raška 2008
nation	Czechoslovakia
birthday	February 4, 1941
place of birth	Frenštát pod Radhoštěm ,  Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia
date of death	January 20, 2012
Place of death	Nový Jičín ,  Czech Republic
Career
National squad	since 1962
End of career	1974
Medal table
Olympic medals 1 × 1 × 0 × World Cup medals 1 × 2 × 0 × SFWM medals 0 × 0 × 1 ×
winter Olympics gold 1968 Grenoble Normal hill silver 1968 Grenoble Large hill  Nordic World Ski Championships gold 1968 Grenoble Normal hill silver 1968 Grenoble Large hill silver 1970 Vysoké Tatry Large hill  Ski flying world championships bronze 1972 Planica singles
Ski jumping world cup / A class jumping
Four Hills Tournament	1. ( 1970/71 )

Jiří Raška (born February 4, 1941 in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm ; † January 20, 2012 in Nový Jičín ) was a Czechoslovakian ski jumper and Czech ski jumping coach . He was the first Czechoslovakian gold medalist at the Winter Olympics .

Life

Raška was born in the then German-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . When he was nine years old, his father died of leukemia and his mother had four children to care for. He came to ski jumping through his uncle and cousin, who were both active jumpers. He was also active in football, cycling and handball.

As a young jumper, Raška joined the legendary “Remza Boys” group of trainer Zdeněk Remsa. When his prospective career threatened an early end due to the draft for military service in the Bohemian Forest , Remsa arranged for the change to the army club "Dukla Liberec". In 1964 Jiří Raška was already a substitute at the Olympic Games in Innsbruck .

After two fourth places at the Nordic World Ski Championships in Oslo in 1966 , victory in ski flying in Planica (Yugoslavia) on March 27, 1966 and second place in the Four Hills Tournament in 1967/68, he was the favorite for the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble . There he won the gold medal on the normal hill and silver on the large hill and with this success he was the first Czechoslovak gold medalist at the Olympic Winter Games. Since at that time the competitions within the framework of the Olympic Games were still considered Nordic World Ski Championships, with these successes he became world champion and vice world champion at the same time. In the same year he managed to win 6 competitions in a row. In 1970 he won the silver medal on the large hill at the Nordic World Ski Championships in the High Tatras (Vysoké Tatry) in Czechoslovakia and finished 8th on the normal hill. In addition, more than 100,000 spectators came to see him.

On March 22, 1969, he was the world record holder in ski flying for one day when he trumped Norwegian Bjørn Wirkola by 4 m on the new hill in Planica with 164 m . A day later Manfred Wolf (GDR) jumped a new world record with 165 m.

In 1970/71 he won the Four Hills Tournament after he had already finished second in 1967/68 and 1968/69. At the Ski Flying World Championships , which was held for the first time in 1972 , he came third and at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo he was 5th on the normal hill and 10th on the large hill.

1974 Raška became a coach and jumped on. He said he would not stop jumping until the first junior hit him. That happened in 1976 when František Novák defeated him; In 1979 Raška took part in a senior jump for the last time.

Between 1994 and 1996 he was the Czech national coach with Medal and later with Malec. In the 1990s he coached the Czech national junior team and was deputy chairman of the Czech Ski Federation.

He was the grandfather of the Czech ski jumpers Jan (career ended) and Jiří Mazoch .

Honors

• In a survey by the Czech Ski Federation, he was voted one of the Czech skier of the century.
• On October 28, 2011, the President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus awarded him the Czech Medal of Merit .

Others

• For his Olympic victory he secretly received 10,000  Kčs and a television set. Due to its amateur status, he had to officially reject the Škoda 1100 MB car . He used it for a year with a factory registration number and then bought it cheaply.
• Raška signed the 2000 Word Manifesto in 1968 .
• The first Olympic victory for Czechoslovakia at the Winter Olympic Games inspired the writer Ota Pavel to write a “fairy tale about Raška”.

successes

Hill records

place	country	Expanse	set up on	Record up
Planica	Slovenia	129.0 m ( HS : 140 m)	1966	1966
Planica	Slovenia	130.0 m ( HS : 140 m)	1966	March 20, 1976
Planica	Slovenia	148.0 m ( HS : 225 m)	March 21, 1969	March 21, 1969
Planica	Slovenia	156.0 m ( HS : 225 m)	March 21, 1969	March 21, 1969
Planica	Slovenia	164.0 m ( HS : 225 m)	March 22, 1969	March 23, 1969
Garmisch-Partenkirchen	Germany	97.0 m ( HS : 140 m)	1st January 1971	1st January 1979

literature

• Ota Pavel : Pohádka o Raškovi (1974)

Web links

Commons : Jiří Raška  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Jiří Raška in the database of the International Ski Federation (English)
• Jiri Raska in the database of Olympedia.org (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jiri Raska, 1968 Olympic ski jumping champ, dies ( Memento from January 23, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Raska won in Planica . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna March 29, 1966, p. 11 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
3. ↑ Ski jumping legend Jiri Raska dead on derstandard.at (accessed on: January 20, 2012)