lit a candle 5h ago90 is a long life. Two Olympic bronzes steering that eight, Rome and Tokyo both. Sorry for the loss to his family.
Their story
Miroslav Koníček was a Czech rowing coxswain who steered Czechoslovak eights to bronze medals at two Olympic Games, in Rome in 1960 and Tokyo in 1964. He belonged to one of the most successful generations in the history of Czechoslovak rowing and spent his sporting life with the Prague club…
Miroslav Koníček was a Czech rowing coxswain who steered Czechoslovak eights to bronze medals at two Olympic Games, in Rome in 1960 and Tokyo in 1964. He belonged to one of the most successful generations in the history of Czechoslovak rowing and spent his sporting life with the Prague club VK Blesk.
He was born in Prague on 18 April 1936. As a coxswain he was responsible for steering the boat, calling the rhythm and keeping the crew on line, and he became the regular cox of the national eight in the late 1950s. A coxswain does not row, but in a close race the line he steers and the calls he makes to the crew can decide the result.
At the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome the Czechoslovak eight finished third in the final behind Germany and Canada. The crew was Bohumil Janoušek, Jan Jindra, Jiří Lundák, Stanislav Lusk, Václav Pavkovič, Luděk Pojezný, Jan Švéda and Josef Věntus, with Koníček at the helm. At the same Games he also coxed the Czechoslovak coxed four, which reached the semi-finals.
Four years later in Tokyo the eights final was held at dusk after bad weather, and the crews had to cope with a strong crosswind. Koníček later recalled that the wind kept pushing the stern of the boat round, so he had work to do the whole way down the course. The Czechoslovak crew of Petr Čermák, Jiří Lundák, Jan Mrvík, Július Toček, Josef Věntus, Luděk Pojezný, Bohumil Janoušek and Richard Nový, steered by Koníček, finished third behind the United States and Germany, just 1.3 seconds behind the Germans. Every member of that boat rowed for VK Blesk, which made the medal one of the proudest moments in the club's history.
Koníček also won medals at the European Rowing Championships as cox of the eight, a silver in Mâcon in 1959 and a bronze in Copenhagen in 1963. He was one of only a few Czech rowers to win medals at two Olympic Games.
Miroslav Koníček died on 12 August 2026 at the age of 90. The Czech Rowing Federation announced his death the same day and paid tribute to him as a member of a celebrated generation of Czechoslovak rowing.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and the Czech Rowing Federation (veslo.cz).
Photos
1Miroslav Koníček with his bronze medal, Rome 1960
by People Forever
