Rome (from our correspondent) ‑ Her performance at the Zlatá tretra stunned her and her rivals. As a teenager, with a performance of 50.69 seconds, she ranked fourth in Czech history, no European junior woman has run so fast since 1991! “I thought she had that kind of time in her legs, but more likely later,” said her coach from the Tábor club Šárka Chládková.
Manuel has been leading since her athletic beginnings eight years ago. “She was always special, even among children,” he says. “At first she ran longer distances, then a turning point came, we tried the 300, then the 400, and it turned out that she has the most strength,” says the coach, who shares Manuel’s unusual but working model with Cologne coach Ratislav Šedina.
“I manage most of the preparation, we go to the training together, when it works out, Ráťa will also arrive, who is then in charge of the final preparation and the competition period, when he will help us put together the training sessions,” Chládková describes the interplay. “Sometimes at the training camp, the morning training is devised by the coach and the afternoon coach,” adds Manuel.
He is not an example of a talent on which coaches impose large training doses at a young age, which then cannot be advanced in adulthood. “We train four to five times a week, gradually increasing the load,” explains Chládková.
When Manuel arrived home after the Zlatá tretra and the journey almost across the entire republic, the family was still celebrating enthusiastically. The race of her life was running round and round on the screen. “And I still don’t understand how I managed it,” smiled the talented girl.
But she soon went to bed, the next day she had schoolwork at the business academy. However, she also took accounting and economics to Rome so that she could study in her free time.
“I have an individual plan when I can move the tests to catch up. Fortunately, it turned out that the big events are this year, when I’m in third grade,” acknowledges Manuel, who already expects to start at the Olympic Games and the Junior World Championships in Lima this summer.
And also making decisions about the future. Understandably, her talent could not escape American universities, where more and more Czech athletes are heading. “I’ve had quite a few of them write to me,” Manuel nods. “But I’m still 50/50 whether to go there or stay,” he says.
Photo: ČAS – Soňa Maléterová
Gloria Lurdes Manuel will be the youngest quarterback in Rome.
For now, he is trying to collect as much material as possible, and in Rome he can draw on experience from his relay partner Barbora Malíková, who is studying industrial design at Virginia Tech.
For now, Manuel is attracted by marketing. “It’s true that you can study it everywhere, in America I would be attracted by a different environment and university life there,” he describes.
“Hopefully Lu will stay here and we’ll have a blast together. After all, the return for athletes who went to America is not very great,” reminds the quarterback colleague Lada Vondrová.
Out of the number of athletes at American universities, only another graduate of Virginia Tech, discus player Marek Bárta, made it to the current Czech national team besides Malíková, and high lifter Bára Sajdoková is currently competing at the NCAA championships. On the other hand, even those who have not made a name for themselves in athletics have gained education and experience, which they then benefit from in their working life.
“Bára (Malíková) is happy there, she has school in the first place and it’s fine, she also runs fast,” Vondrová describes. “Lu has a different complexion than us, I think she would be happy in America as well. It’s just that she hasn’t trained that much yet, I don’t know if they would put too much pressure on her. You need to be in control and not choose the university that writes you an email first,” he adds.
Coach Chládková does not want to talk her client into making decisions. “It will be up to her if she goes to school in Prague or goes to America. We didn’t discuss it in any way, but if she had asked me, I would have told her to stay in the Czech Republic,” she admits.
The advantage of Manuel, who has Angolan-Russian blood in his blood through his parents, is language skills, but he can communicate in five languages. “There’s a lot of confusion in our family, I have aunts in Belgium, London and Paris, so we need to come to an agreement,” she explains with a smile.
He doesn’t have to fear anyone
After all, he will perform at the Olympic Games in Paris in August, but he will gather his first big adult experience now in Rome. She will miss Friday’s mixed relay, because then she can start every day. From Saturday to Monday individual Thursday, Tuesday and Wednesday women’s relay. Considering the time, he sets himself a relatively modest goal: advancing to the semi-finals.
“Lu has a head for big events. But everything has to come together. Just because she ran so beautifully once doesn’t mean she can do it again. But after Zlatá tretra, he already knows that he doesn’t have to fear even the best,” adds Chládková.
2024-06-06 16:57:56
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