There seems to be no end to the sad news at the beginning of this year.

We just said goodbye to Dr. Brandejský at the indoor M-ČR in Stromovka, the day after 13.2. In 2023, Ján Dzurňák left our pedestrian ranks at the age of less than 70.

This outstanding representative of the former Czechoslovakia was born on 1 June 6 and belonged to a very successful generation of pedestrians of the eighties and nineties, which includes Dana Vavřačová, Kamila Holpuchová, named Ján Dzurňák, Jaromír Vaňous, Vladimír Podroužek, František Bíro - he left in 1953, Ivo Piták, Hubert Sonnek, Miloslav Lapka, Jaroslav Makovec, whom we said goodbye to last year, Tomáš Kratochvíl, Miloš Holuša, Jiří Malysa.

His great track was fifty. He stood on the podium of this royal track three times and in 1980 became the champion of the Czechoslovak Republic with a performance of 4:07:02. He achieved his best performance a year earlier in Eschborn in an excellent time of 4:04:03. This time, if I'm not mistaken, is among the top ten best performances of the Czech Republic for 50 km to this day. The winner of the traditional Prague - Brandýs 20km race from 1975 also achieved his best time for 1980km on the circuit in 20, 1:27:30 in Český Brod.

Ján Dzurňák belonged to my generation. And not only by the year of birth, but directly in terms of training, when we were led at the then RH Prague (now Olymp Prague) by the legendary coach JUDr. Fischer. Together with Láďa Podroužek and Juraj Malík, we spent a lot of time at training sessions in the High Tatras and dreamed of our sporting Olympic dreams. Honza Dzurňák was one of the honest, thoughtful athletes for whom training was not just a given job, but a well-thought-out part of life. He also competed for a long time - and successfully - for Klatovy in the league, where he achieved a time of 5000:27 in the 12,82 m walk in Jihlava in 2010. In Pilsen, he brought several young talents to walk at the academy.

I remember our endless debates about training, about walking technique, about endurance, about Honzo's observation of the effect of weather and performance and altitude. Many of the younger pedestrians met Honza Dzurňák in Prague's Stromovka. And they were surprised by how modest they met him, how willing he was to advise them on training and share his experiences with his inimitable Slovak accent - He was a star with his performance at 50 km and he didn't make it about himself. I have a feeling that he is still there somewhere at the start of the two-kilometer circuit, looking carefully at our walking efforts behind his glasses and keeping his fingers crossed for us.

Honor his memory!

Mila Lapka