Martina Sablikova
Martina Sablikova is born in Nové Město near Moravě, in 1987. The first sport she participated in was basketball. When she was 12 years old Petr Novak suggested to her mother that she better change to speed skating because he saw a big speed skating champion in her.
Petr Novak, a former ice hockey coach who liked very much speed skating, was put in charge of the Czech speed skating program in the late 1980th. In a country with nt facilities and a very low budget, he saw his possibility when he saw a 12 years old girl at a rollerblading contest. Slowly building a team around her given his budget of 10.000 euros to work with. For years he drove Martina and her training partners around in an old bus which he had bought with his own money to find training facilities and races to participate. He was the trainer, the coach, the physiotherapist, the manager and the bus driver.
He required hard training from his star pupil, Sablikova, every afternoon after finishing school. He demanded complete dedication and obedience, and from Martine he received it. This formula was so good that by the time that she was 17, she was already competing with the professionals in this sport and she won her first 3km race. With this first succes they got some money and then won more and more races and got more money for the team.
It will be clear that this is a very different background than the one of Ireen Wüst. Nevertheless, she was able to compete with her more than any other skater of that time. The reasons were that she was a frail and slightly built in a sport where most females are stronger and bulkier. That gave her a natural advantage of less air resistance and the need of less energy to move forwards. Her success is also based on the fact that she makes more steps in the curves than the others. In this way she normally comes with a higher speed out of the curve than her competeters
Petr Novak, a former ice hockey coach who liked very much speed skating, was put in charge of the Czech speed skating program in the late 1980th. In a country with nt facilities and a very low budget, he saw his possibility when he saw a 12 years old girl at a rollerblading contest. Slowly building a team around her given his budget of 10.000 euros to work with. For years he drove Martina and her training partners around in an old bus which he had bought with his own money to find training facilities and races to participate. He was the trainer, the coach, the physiotherapist, the manager and the bus driver.
He required hard training from his star pupil, Sablikova, every afternoon after finishing school. He demanded complete dedication and obedience, and from Martine he received it. This formula was so good that by the time that she was 17, she was already competing with the professionals in this sport and she won her first 3km race. With this first succes they got some money and then won more and more races and got more money for the team.
It will be clear that this is a very different background than the one of Ireen Wüst. Nevertheless, she was able to compete with her more than any other skater of that time. The reasons were that she was a frail and slightly built in a sport where most females are stronger and bulkier. That gave her a natural advantage of less air resistance and the need of less energy to move forwards. Her success is also based on the fact that she makes more steps in the curves than the others. In this way she normally comes with a higher speed out of the curve than her competeters