Pavel Ploc

“Our dad used to tell us: ’Kids, you better go for ski-jumping. Ski jumpers get bigger trophies.’ Thus from early age we were attracted by ski-jumping. I used to act I was Jiří Raška, a famous Czech jumper; our grandma had to sew us racing numbers to make it look more real. At home, we would jump from a blanket chest to a divan stuffed with duvets and pillows, pretending we were jumpers. Later in Harrachov, we used to build little ski jumps out of snow together with the other boys. Almost every boy who grew up in the mountains where there are the right conditions knows this game. And so we pretended to be jumpers once again. Everybody had a nickname after his idol – mine was Jiří Raška – and we were competing against each other. It was even before elementary school when I first went to the fifteen-meter ski jump in Harrachov with my cross-country skis, because I had not had any jumper skis yet. There was no one around and I dared to jump secretly, not from the very top but only from about the middle of the ramp. I jumped maybe four or five meters far and I managed not to fall down. Excited, I ran home to tell my parents that I jumped from a real ski jump for the very first time.”

“Three weeks after the accident the Ski Flying World Championship in Planica took place. The Norwegians brought me a picture. In Czechoslovakia we probably did not even know this technique yet, but they had it all time-lapsed. I do not know whether they wanted to influence the way I felt, to give me a fright. Right before I was about to go to the ‘mammoth ski-jump’, the Norwegian coach showed me a picture of my accident, time-lapsed so that one could see every detail. I must admit that the first time at the mammoth jump in Planica, I was scared. I admit this because I remembered the accident. Thus the jump was a sort of cautious. However, there were five of us Czechoslovak jumpers back then and only four could be nominated for the championship. So I needed to forget about the accident very quickly. I gave it my best for the second, there was not that much holding back anymore, but it just did not go well. The coach came and told me that probably I was not all right mentally after the fall in Harrachov and that one could see that I was not giving it all. And that if I did not jump properly in the next round I would probably not have qualified for the championship. The third jump was quite okay, but I was not totally satisfied either. Back then, a lot of functionaries were traveling with us to the championships and were meddling into the coach’s decisions. They said: ’Ploc is screwed. He will never fly again. He has the Harrachov accident in his head. He’s blocked.’ They told the coach not to nominate me and so it happened. Yet my great friend Vláďa Podzimek, who is no longer with us, stood by my side and said: ’The only one who can win a medal at this championship is Pavel and thus I am giving up on my own nomination.’ I am really thankful to him; he gave up his nomination to my benefit. And so I said to myself that I must win a medal, if only for Vláďa. I managed to win a bronze medal in the end. It was one of the hardest medals I ever fought for. World championship is not that much of interest to the people as the Olympic Games, but for me it was extremely hard to get it.”