A gala evening was held at the Ambassador Hotel Zlatá Husa on the occasion of the announcement of the Athlete of the Year 2024. The winner was javelin thrower Jakub Vadlejch for the fourth time in a row. David Sekerák, Lurdes Gloria Manuel and Tomas Järvinen also won awards.
Spearman Jakub Vadlejch has been in the elite ten athletes for eight years in a row and this is the fourth time he has won the overall top ten. While his three previous triumphs were completely sovereign, the fourth one was decided by a relatively small difference of 22 points. Jakub started this season by winning the Diamond League event in Doha, Qatar. At the European Championships in Rome he won his first major gold medal, securing the title of continental champion with a throw of 88.65 metres. He then threw just fifteen centimetres less in the final at the Paris Olympics, yet his 88.50 performance in the best javelin event in history was not enough to win the precious metal as Jakub finished just below the podium in an unpopular fourth place.
The fact that javelin is our exhibition discipline is confirmed by the fact that the second place in this year's Athlete of the Year belongs to Nikola Ogrodníková. She has already won this poll in the past, in 2018, when she won silver at the European Championships in Berlin. She decided to prepare for the 2024 Olympic season on her own and delivered a more stable performance than in previous years. At the European Championships in Rome, she finished fifth in the final and the highlight of her performance came in the Olympic final, where she delivered her longest throw in three years, 63.68m, in the third series to hang the bronze medal around her neck and achieve her biggest career success to date. This is the fifth time for Nikola to be ranked in the Top 10 Athlete of the Year.
This year, the third pole vaulter achieved her best finish out of four Athlete of the Year top ten entries Amálie Švábíková. So far, her best finish has been fifth in the 2023 season. Amalia has been successful in all three of her national highlights this year. She finished sixth at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow. At the European finals in Rome, she shared fourth place. She then hinted at the form of her life ahead of the Olympics when she capped her victory at the Czech Championships in Zlín with a 473 centimetres performance. However, she did even better in her debut under five rings, as she shone with a new national record of 480 centimetres and took a great fifth place.
Quarterback Lourdes Gloria Manuel is only in the Top 10 Athlete for the first time, but it's already ranked fourth. Lu, however, has done great throughout the year. She shocked at the Golden Trot with a time of 50.59, the fastest time by a European U19 athlete since 1991, and moved up to fourth in the historic junior continental tables. She was then even faster at the European Championships in Rome, where she finished fourth in 50.52. She didn't lose her way at the Paris Olympics, where she advanced to the semi-finals and then ran an absolutely dominant race to claim the World Junior title in Lima at the end of the season. In addition to fourth place in the main category, Manuel can also enjoy the junior of the year award.
A newcomer at the gala was also a high altitude Jan Steffel. His performance this year, however, entitles him to do so. This year he reached a major career milestone when he surpassed the 230 centimetres mark, only the sixth Czech in history to do so. He broke this mark three times during the season. In addition, he represented the Czech Republic at major championships. At the HMS in Glasgow he came fifth. At the European Championships in Rome he achieved the same position and in the Olympic final in Paris he finished ninth.
Koular Tomas Stanek is a fixture in the top ten Athlete of the Year. After last year's second place, he is sixth this year. At the European Championships in Rome, the experienced matador was six centimetres away from a medal and he came fifth from Italy. His longest attempt of the season came in the Olympic qualification in Paris, where he sent his apparatus to a distance of 21.61 metres. In the final, he finished tenth.
The hitter Radek Juska struggled for most of the year, but he prepared perfectly for the Olympics. At the right moment, he reached 815 centimetres in the Olympic qualification, securing his place in the Olympic final, which he narrowly missed eight years ago in Rio. This time he was not missing and finished tenth. He finishes seventh in this year's poll. Overall, this is his sixth top 10 finish.
Quarter hurdler hurdler Nikoleta Jíchová defended her eighth place from last year. Her best memories this year will be of the European Championships in Rome, where she set three times under 55 seconds, with the semi-final time of 54.59 being a career best. In the final she finished in an excellent fourth place. She was also present at the Olympic Games in Paris, where she was limited by a knee injury and did not make it to the semi-finals.
Petr Meindlschmid is one of three juniors to finish in the top 10 in this year's poll and at 18 years old, he is the youngest ever of this year's top 10. He secured the ninth position mainly thanks to his performances at the European Championships in Rome, where he twice improved his own junior record to 803 centimetres, a record that saw him finish a superb seventh at the adult continental championships.
The Half-Doctor Jakub Dudycha has topped the Athlete of the Year poll for the last two years in the Junior of the Year category. This time he didn't add a third prize, but he did make it to the top ten in the main category, as he is now tenth. Jakub had a great performance at the European Championships in Rome, where he advanced to the semi-finals and shortly afterwards broke the long-standing national record of Lukáš Vydra at the Bydgoszcz meet, which he improved to 1:44.82. At the Olympic Games he missed the semi-finals by a few hundredths.
David Sekerák became Coach of the Year, breaking the previous dominance of Jan Železný in this category. David Sekerák led Japanese javelin thrower Haruka Kitaguchi to the Olympic title and the overall victory in the Diamond League series this year. His other charge, Petra Sicakova, finished 14th at the Olympics and was less than a metre away from the final. The Domažlice patriot was named Coach of the Year for the first time.
Czech youth achieved unique performances this year and the proof is also the multi Tomas Järvinenwhich was named discovery of the year. The 19-year-old talent showed his potential indoors, where he scored 5997 points in the heptathlon, which puts him fourth in the historical world tables of the under-19 category. He then gave an absolutely sovereign performance at the World Junior Championships in Lima, when he outright outclassed his opponents and won the world gold in the decathlon with a total of 8425 points, which was only ten points behind the junior world record of Germany's Niklas Kaul.
Athlete of the Year 2024 - TOP 10
1. Jakub Vadlejch 1397 points
2. Nikola Ogrodnikova 1375
3. Amálie Švábíková 1136
4. Lurdes Gloria Manuel 774
5. Jan Štefela 753
6. Tomas Stanek 730
7. Radek Juška 526
8. Nikoleta Jíchová 436
9. Petr Meindlschmid 141
10. Jakub Dudycha 132
Junior of the Year
1. Lurdes Gloria Manuel 96
2. Tomas Järvinen 38
3. Jakub Dudycha 5
Discovery of the Year
1. Tomas Järvinen 65
2. Lurdes Gloria Manuel 28
3. Michal Rada 20
Coach of the Year
1. David Sekerák 51
2. Jan Železný 29
3. Josef Karas 27
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