“It once even happened that I had to strip down to my underwear in the customs office because I wanted to please my relatives and I carried some things and did not write it in customs declarations. So, they wanted to know if I did not have it in my bottom parts, so they made me strip down. So, then there was an impolite customs officer who was beginning in the customs, he was around twenty years old and it happened when I was twenty-eight. ‘Those are the national team members,‘ he remarked, and it made me angry and I demanded that he apologize. Then they sent me letter of apology saying that he did not behave right. It felt very humiliating at that time. Every time we travel, and I tell stories from customs to young women and men who are in team with me, they cannot understand that something like this was happening. Even when we were returning by train from the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Milena Duchková was in the same compartment with us. She won a golden medal in Mexico and she won a bronze medal in Diving in Munich. The customs officers were oafish to her. She had to pay customs just for bringing tapes. Of course, they returned it to her after several months.”
“Then they invited me from Dukla Olomouc to go to Spartakiad of friendly armies in 1973 or 1974. I would like to add, it is a funny story, when the ones who went there did not know what to take with them. I borrowed a fur coat from my team mate and friend Michal and I had a hat. I arrived at Ruzyně airport and they told me there that it would be good if I brought some food with me. There were not many things in the airport at that time, so I bought about six bottles of beer and there were also two cans of canned food. And I left for Mongolia. When we came to a hotel which was, I think, the nicest one in Ulaanbaatar or the only one there expect of yurts, I could smell pungent smell from the cafeteria. I knew that it would be bad. Except of the fact that I was wearing sweatpants to matches and there was not even water, I ate eggs. But for the first time they brought me scrambled eggs made with oil. So, I refused it and I got only boiled eggs from then on. Friends brought food with them, but they probably did not have ‘enough‘ when they brought it back home. I managed it there eating only boiled eggs, two cans of canned food and six bottles of bears. We went to wash once in two days.”
Jan Bobrovský was born on the 29th of March 1945 in Brno. He started to play basketball when he was thirteen and he joined the national team when he was eighteen. His brothers Zdeněk and Ivan also represented Zbrojovka in basketball. Jan studied secondary school and Mathematics and The Basics of Industry Manufacturing at Pedagogical Faculty. He played basketball for teams Zbrojovka Brno, Dukla Olomouc and Slavia VŠD Žilina. He won the Czechoslovak championship seven times. He was awarded the prize for the best Czechoslovak basketball player in 1971 and 1973. He represented Zbrojovka in FIBA European Champions Cup twice but did not win the prize. Zbrojovka lost to Real Madrid. Jan won a silver and a bronze medal in the European championship and represented Czechoslovakia in National championships and in Olympics. As a trainer, he led Zbrojovka to win national titles and he won 2006 Euroleague Women with women´s club Gambrinus Brno. He won gold medals at 2005 European Championship with women´s national club. He has two daughters, both played basketball and so did their children. Jan Bobrovský was living in Brno in 2020 and he was a local authority member for the Žabovřesky district.
