Vladimír Jarý

* 1947

  • "There were heavy athletes, bowlers, discus throwers, and so on, then others. I've encountered that, I don't want to blame anybody, I've experienced or seen a number of those who even tried it because it helped them. It wasn't considered a transgression in those days. They tried to enforce it in team sports as well, but in our team, as far as I know, nobody used these aids in handball. But of course, weightlifters did, the heavy sports category, so why not? Where a lot depended on muscle, on muscle mass growth? That was kind of the idea at the time, that that was the basis of everything. You said they made you fortified sausages. If you'd mentioned that story. One of the forms was - try it. It was called a fortified diet. The name itself makes it clear what it is. There was an effort to put these resources into standard canned sausages. I can tell you straight out that none of us handball players ate it. But a friend of mine used to take it home, and give it to his dog, and he grew strong muscles. He even performed at various shows."

  • "We were already playing for the title a year before '74. Just to give you an idea, we flew, no, we took the train there. We arrived on a Saturday, it was supposed to be played at 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, and TV was supposed to be there. But those scoundrels in Prešov, the bastards, they thought of running the hydrant on the clay and flooding it. The referees said it was an irregular pitch and the TV went away. We played in the afternoon which harmed us. The referees? The referees. We lost the title. Too bad we didn't go there just for a trip, we needed to get at least a point. We lost by seven in the last minute. Well, maybe I'm digressing."

  • "I lived in Litvínov until I was twenty years old, so, I'll say it from today's point of view, it was a disaster, fogs were the order of the day. The mines were uncovered, and they were smoking. The second thing was the chemical plant between Litvínov and the Most, it was constantly smelly. Mostly in Litvínov, it hit us. There were fogs where you really couldn't see a step ahead of you. It's hard to imagine. I'll give you an example. When we were going from Most to Litvínov by car, one was walking in front of the car, and as there were bollards, he was holding on to the bollards. Because he couldn't see anything either, and he was afraid of stepping on the wrong one, and there was a light shining on him from the car. I'm just going to mention this extreme, really even in Most, I went to school there, there were fogs in Most too. It wasn't very healthy there."

  • "I don't know if you have the information that each team had one member of the ČSTV Central Committee assigned to them at the Olympics? That he was supervising them? An eye? An eye, if I may say so. Imagine that we found out he had a tape recorder in his suitcase. Collegiate sports are always fun. If it's not fun, it's not worth it. Somebody found out he had a tape recorder in his suitcase, and imagine this guy, I can't remember his name, I don't even want to, he had a hump, poor guy, he was short and he had this blemish here. So I guess you can imagine in collegiate sports how it works then, the titles and the names. I don't know if it's worth saying anymore. Tell me. Anyway, I'll put it this way. It's just that Vícha was a phenomenon, and I've since come to recognize him as more than just a handball capacity. Vícha swept the locker room clean of the guy and also fired the other coach, Šesták, who was also partisanly involved, and locked him. And I won't tell you what went on there, I've never experienced that in my life. Like a goading against the Russians in general? It still gives me the creeps, what he could say was just unbelievable. When I think of magic, it was nothing compared to that. He brought it up, not everybody had it in them, but most of us fell for it. And the goalies caught three sevens. Then, of course, they complained about it, both the other coach, Šesták, and the Eye. It turned out the way it did, we beat them and we knew we had to beat them 12-10 by at least two, and then always by more than two. We won 15 to 12, I still remember that. They tied with Sweden in the regular season, that helped too. That made us the group winners and we played the final. I'll never forget the Russians, what a beating that was. I will never forget what the atmosphere was like, I have never experienced such an atmosphere since."

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I wouldn‘t wish Štrougal to hear what Jirka Vícha said before the game with the Russians

Vladimír Jarý as Handball Player of the Year 1974
Vladimír Jarý as Handball Player of the Year 1974
zdroj: archive of Vladimír Jarý

Vladimír Jarý was born on 2 January 1947 in Litvínov. He had two older brothers who were born in Prague during the Second World War. In 1946, the family moved to Litvínov, where they got a large, nice apartment left by the displaced Sudeten Germans. His father worked in the apprenticeship of the Litvínov Chemical Works, and his mother worked as a clerk at the town national committee. Vladimír Jarý had a happy childhood, but his life in Litvínov was spoiled by bad air caused by industrial exhalations. From an early age, he played sports, he went to Sokol, played hockey for two years, and then switched to basketball and handball. He combined both sports until he was 19. He joined the adult handball team at the age of 17, playing in the second league with Litvínov. At the age of 20, he graduated from the mechanical engineering school. He joined the Dukla Prague handball team, where he played in the first league alongside several world champions. After the war, he went to Škoda Plzeň. In 1970, he made his way to the national team, where he played clutch as well as in the club. In 1972, he went with the national team to the Summer Olympics in Munich, where he was shaken by the terrorist attack by Palestinian commandos on the Israeli team. He saw with his own eyes the masked terrorists in the Olympic Village. The Olympics resumed after the interruption, and the Czechoslovak handball team won silver medals, beating the Soviet Union in the battle for the final. In the 1973/74 season, Vladimír Jarý won the Czechoslovak championship with Škoda Plzeň. He made it to the 1976 Montreal Olympics, where the team finished seventh. A year later, he retired from the national team. After 1989, he coached handball in Bavaria and also worked on construction sites there. In 2021, he was living in Pilsen.