Barbora Špotáková

Czech Republic’s javelin world record holder and 2008 Olympic champion Barbora Špotáková has confirmed that she plans to be part of her country’s team at the 3^rd SPAR European Team Championships in Stockholm, which will be held on 18-19 June.

Her main aim in the Swedish capital will be to contribute maximum points and help Czech Republic stay in the top division of the world’s premier competition between nations.

She finished second at the inaugural Championships in 2009, finishing behind Germany’s Christina Obergföll in the Portuguese city of Leiria, but it was not enough to stop the Czech Republic being relegated, albeit by just three points.

Last year, she won at the First League match in Budapest, throwing an excellent 67.63m, and helped the Czech Republic top the table and get promotion straight back into the top flight.

Špotáková said that her first competition will be at small meeting in Schwandorf, Germany, on May 15. “I wanted to start at something rather small and this is exactly that and it is close to Czech Republic,” said the 29-year-old thrower, speaking to the Czech media on Wednesday. She then has a hectic schedule of three meetings in 10 days: the Samsung Diamond League meeting in Rome on  26 May; the Golden Spike meeting on home soil in  Ostrava on 31 May and the another Diamond League meeting in Eugene (United States) on 4 June.

“It’s still too early to say what I can achieve this season; let’s see when I’ve had a competition and things have progressed. Obviously, the main target is the World Championships in Daegu (South Korea) this summer,” she added.

In Daegu, she will be aiming to regain the world title she won in 2007 after finishing second two years ago in Berlin.

Špotáková has just returned from her first two-month long training camp in South Africa, working there under the guidance of her coach and men’s world record holder Jan Zelezny.

“It was my first time and the positives outweighed any negative thoughts beforehand. In reality, the two months were split into two halves and there was a four-day break in the middle, when I could relax and do a bit of sightseeing,” explained Špotáková.

“One advantage over the two-week camp I have usually done before is that is that I did not feel the same pressure. In a two-week camp, you try to cram a lot in. When a person has a health problem, there is no difficulty finding an alternative programme. I hurt an Achilles (tendon) while I was out there and I could not run very much for two weeks but luckily, Iron Jan has the experience and devised an alternative programme for me. I did not have to worry about my health and during the last three weeks I was training flat out again.

“In South Africa, it was all just perfect, not just the training conditions for the javelin. It was incredible there! If we wanted a motorboat, so we got it, everything was done for us. We really lacked for nothing there,” said a happy and enthusiastic Špotáková.

source: european-athletics.org