Olympic kayaker Josef Dostál named Sportsman of the Year 2024

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The ten best athletes, the three most successful teams, the Sports Legend, the best junior and the winner of the category Devotion to Sport received their awards during the Sportsman of the Year 2024 programme hosted by Daniela Brzobohatá on ČT1. 230 journalists contributed their votes in the 66th year of the professional poll announced by the Club of Sports Journalists. The entire project is organised by the BPA sports marketing agency. The general partner of the project was the betting company Tipsport.

Title Sportsman of the Year 2024 won the kayaker Josef Dostál, Olympic champion at the Paris Games and world champion in the 500 metres. The second place went to tennis player Barbora Krejcikova, winner of Wimbledon. Third place with a loss of only three points belongs to another Olympic winner in speed canoeing Martin Fuks.

Kateřina Siniaková came in fourth, while the fifth and sixth places belonged to hockey players David Pastrňák and Lukáš Dostál. Another successful tennis player, Tomáš Macháč, finished seventh. The captain of the national hockey team Roman Červenka was eighth and the top ten was rounded off by a pair of athletes: ninth Nikola Ogrodníková and tenth Jakub Vadlejch.

Collective of the Year 2024 has become national team of Czech hockey players. The second place went to the fencing team of fencers and the bronze podium went to the football players of Sparta.

Sports legend has been announced Milena Duchková-Neveklovská, Olympic champion in diving from Mexico 1968.

This year's award winner for "Dedication to sport" under the auspices of the National Sports Agency became Josef Fuksa, long-time coach of speed canoeists, grandfather of this year's Olympic champion Martin Fuksa.
In category Junior of the Year athlete won Lourdes Gloria Manuel ahead of Paralympic swimmer David Kratochvil and another athlete Tomas Järvinen.

In this year's edition, the awarded athletes received silver investment coins Czech Lion from the Czech Mint.
The author of the main prize, the traditional crown for the winner, is the artist Alena Matějka.

The kayaker Josef Dostál was a guest of the award ceremony for the first time in 2011, when he appeared in the nomination for the best junior. He finished second then behind speed skater Karolina Erbanova and ahead of his fellow canoeist Martin Fuksa. A year later, he was invited to the adult category, but in the team category, where he finished third with the national four-kayak team. The year of the 2016 Olympic Games brought Dostál second places among individuals and teams (again in the quadruple sculls). In 2017, he finished eighth, but since then he has been absent among the best. He did not return until 2024, and then as a winner.

The title of Sportsman of the Year was awarded to a representative of speed canoeing for the third time in its history. In 1989, the poll was won by Attila Szabó, who was followed seven years later by Martin Doktor. Dostál is the 46th athlete to win the title. In 66 years, the poll has had 14 multiple winners. Vera Čáslavská and Jan Železný dominate the list, having won it four times.

This time, voters preferred Olympic gold to the Wimbledon title, which, for example, was not the case in 2014, when tennis player Petra Kvitová beat golden snowboarder Eva Samkova. This year, despite her triumph at Wimbledon, Barbora Krejcikova was left in second place.

And the fight for second place was extremely even. Krejčíková beat another Olympic gold medallist, canoeist Martin Fuksa, by just three points.

This year, the announcer of the poll, the Club of Sports Journalists, decided to nominate the tennis pair Kateřina Siniaková - Tomáš Macháč individually, because apart from their joint journey to Olympic gold in mixed doubles, they each had their individual tournaments with different results. Siniakova was more successful on the courts and in the poll, where she took fourth place. Machac was seventh behind hockey players David Pastrnak and Lukas Dostal.

The sixth and seventh places were decided by an auxiliary criterion - the number of better ballot positions. L. Dostál and Macháč received 764 points each, but the hockey goalie came in first place with nine voters.

The winner of the poll, Josef Dostál, had the most ten-point subsidies for first place - forty-nine. Krejčíková was the winner for 44 voters, Fuksa for 25, Siniaková for 22.

RANKING OF THE JOURNALIST POLL ATHLETE OF THE YEAR 2024

UNIDENTIFIED PERSONS

order	Name	sport	points
1.	Josef Dostál	speed canoeing	1316
2.	Barbora Krejcikova	tennis	1266
3.	Martin Fuksa	speed canoeing	1263
4.	Kateřina Siniaková	tennis	1092
5.	David Pastrnak	Hockey	842
6.*	Lukáš Dostál	Hockey	764
7.*	Tomas Machac	tennis	764
8.	Roman Cervenka	Hockey	683
9.	Nikola Ogrodnikova	Athletics	598
10.	Jakub Vadlejch	Athletics	570

• * in case of equal points, the greater number of better placings is decisive

COLLECTIVES

1. HOCKEY - Czech national team men, 472 points
2. ŠERM - Czech national team, 335 points
   (Beran, Jurka, Čupr, Rubes)
3. FOOTBALL - AC Sparta Prague, 202 points

Sports Legend 2024 - Emil Zátopek Award

• Milena Duchková-Neveklovská (jumping into the water)

Dedication to Sport 2024 - National Sports Agency Award

• Josef Fuksa (speed canoeing)

Juniors

1. Lourdes Gloria Manuel, athletics, 53 points
2. David Kratochvil, swimming, 35 points
3. Tomas Järvinen, athletics, 17 points

sportecroku.cz/ gnews - RoZ

PHOTO - Petr Coufal, Petr Frýba.