Jan Nagy

“No professional sport was being done at that time, although obviously there was the national team (and its members were already receiving financial rewards). But for me, it would be a professional sport only if I had any profit from it. But I have never gotten anything from it in my entire life. Once I succeeded in setting a series of records. It was in Teplice: 240 kg and it was the second or third best achievement of all times. there was this Alexejev, for instance, but one could not really compete with him. Firstly, he weighted thirty kilograms more than me, and secondly, they were able to get hold of nierabolchik in their pharmacies there. Nierabol was an anabolic and people who did some heavy work were normally able to purchase it there. And it was obvious. I can also say that although Alexejev was two years older than me, he already died two years ago.”

“It was the end of the year and there was to be some competition, a championship. Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship Cup in Bohumín. I had influenza at that time. And during the meeting of the chairman of our sports club, who was the director of OPBH… this man, whom I would characterize in one sentence as a person who was not even able to do a forward roll, let alone a backward one, he was an antithesis to a sports talent. And this guy told me that if I did not participate in that competition, I could forget about Moscow (the Olympic Games in Moscow). The Olympics were to be held half a year later. And I would have certainly qualified for the Olympics, do you understand? Well, I have to admit that I always say what I think. I told him that he was simply the last person who should be giving me orders, and that he could stick all these Olympics up his arse. I went home, I sat at my desk and I wrote to Prague as a member of the national team that I was quitting. I wrote to the sports club that I was quitting for health reasons, and weightlifting was definitely over for me. (And was it really such a big problem? You had to take part in many other competitions like that, hadn’t you? Or what bothered you about it so much? What was the reason for not going to the Olympics?) The reason was that I was really recovering after the illness and I needed to get fit again and I did not consider it necessary to participate in that competition. And most of all, I got mad at the manner of acting of this nobody, who dared to say something like that – and to talk to me as if he was giving me orders. No way… I immediately showed him my claws!”