Jan Železný (; born 16 June 1966) is a Czech former

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping events ...

athlete who competed in the

javelin throw The javelin throw is a track and field event where the javelin, a spear about in length, is thrown. The javelin thrower gains momentum by running within a predetermined area. Javelin throwing is an event of both the men's decathlon and the ...

. He is a

World In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

and

Olympic Olympic or Olympics may refer to Sports Competitions * Olympic Games, international multi-sport event held since 1896 ** Summer Olympic Games ** Winter Olympic Games * Ancient Olympic Games, ancient multi-sport event held in Olympia, Greece b ...

champion and holds the

world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organization ...

with a throw of . Widely considered to be the greatest javelin thrower of the modern era, he also has the fourth, fifth and sixth best performances of all time. He broke the world record a total of four times.

Biography

Železný was born in

Mladá Boleslav Mladá Boleslav (; german: Jungbunzlau) is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 42,000 inhabitants. Mladá Boleslav is the second most populated city in the region and a major centre of the Czech automotive ind ...

Czechoslovakia , rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי, , common_name = Czechoslovakia , life_span = 1918–19391945–1992 , p1 = Austria-Hungary , image_p1 ...

. He won the silver medal in the 1988 Olympics and the gold medal at the

1992 File:1992 Events Collage V1.png, From left, clockwise: 1992 Los Angeles riots, Riots break out across Los Angeles, California after the Police brutality, police beating of Rodney King; El Al Flight 1862 crashes into a residential apartment buildi ...

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A Centennial Olympic Park bombing, bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical Anti-abortion violence, anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 8 ...

and

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

Summer Olympic Games The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inau ...

. He won World Championship titles in 1993, 1995 and 2001. Železný holds the world record of , set in 1996, and the World Championships record of , set in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

. On 26 March 1997 in Stellenbosch, South Africa, he threw over the 90-metre barrier five times in a single meet. Until September 2020, he was also the only athlete to throw more than 95 metres with the new type of javelin, something he achieved three times. During his career, Železný had many great battles against the likes of

Steve Backley Stephen James Backley, OBE (born 12 February 1969) is a retired British track and field athlete who competed in the javelin throw. He formerly held the world record, and his throw from 1992 is the British record. During his career, he was a ...

, Sergey Makarov,

Boris Henry Boris Obergföll (' Henry; born 14 December 1973) is a retired German track and field athlete who competed in the javelin throw. He won a bronze medal in the World Championships twice (1995 and 2003). His personal best throw was 90.44 metres, ...

Seppo Räty Seppo Henrik Räty (born 27 April 1962) is a retired Finnish track and field athlete who competed in the javelin throw. He was a World Champion, having won gold in 1987. He was also an Olympic medalist (silver in 1992, bronze in 1988 and 1996). ...

Raymond Hecht Raymond Hecht (born 11 November 1968) is a German track and field athlete who competed in the javelin throw. His personal best throw is 92.60 m, achieved in 1995. This places him eighth on the all-time rankings. During his career, Hecht set fiv ...

and

Aki Parviainen Aki Uolevi Parviainen (born 26 October 1974) is a retired Finnish track and field athlete who competed in the javelin throw. He won the gold medal at the 1999 World Championships and the silver medal at the 2001 World Championships. His best th ...

. Železný planned to retire after the 2006 European Championships in

Gothenburg Gothenburg (; abbreviated Gbg; sv, Göteborg ) is the second-largest city in Sweden, fifth-largest in the Nordic countries, and capital of the Västra Götaland County. It is situated by the Kattegat, on the west coast of Sweden, and has ...

, where he won the bronze medal with a throw of . He took leave of his career on 19 September 2006 on exhibition in

, the place where he started with athletics. Železný coaches

Vítězslav Veselý Vítězslav Veselý () (born 27 February 1983) is a Czech javelin thrower. He won two bronze medals at the Olympic games, in 2012 and 2020. Career He finished ninth at the 2002 World Junior Championships. He threw a personal best throw of 81.20 ...

and is the former coach of

Barbora Špotáková Barbora Špotáková (; born 30 June 1981) is a former Czech track and field athlete who competed in the javelin throw. She is a two-time Olympic Champion and three-time World Champion, as well as the current world record holder with a throw of ...

. Four days after winning a gold medal at the 1996 Olympics, Železný had a tryout as a

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

with the

Atlanta Braves The Atlanta Braves are an American professional baseball team based in the Atlanta metropolitan area. The Braves compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League East, East division. The Braves ...

Fulton County Stadium Fulton may refer to: People * Robert Fulton (1765–1815), American engineer and inventor who developed the first commercially successful steam-powered ship * Fulton (surname) Given name * Fulton Allem (born 1957), South African golfer * Fult ...

. Both Železný and the Braves treated the tryout seriously and not as a "publicity stunt" or "sideshow," though Železný had no baseball experience beyond throwing a ball at home with his young son.

International competitions

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zelezny, Jan 1966 births Living people Sportspeople from Mladá Boleslav Czechoslovak male javelin throwers Czech male javelin throwers Czech athletics coaches Olympic athletes of Czechoslovakia Olympic silver medalists for Czechoslovakia Olympic gold medalists for Czechoslovakia Athletes (track and field) at the 1988 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1992 Summer Olympics Olympic athletes of the Czech Republic Olympic gold medalists for the Czech Republic Athletes (track and field) at the 1996 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2000 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2004 Summer Olympics World Athletics Championships athletes for Czechoslovakia World Athletics Championships athletes for the Czech Republic World Athletics Championships medalists European Athletics Championships medalists World Athletics record holders Recipients of Medal of Merit (Czech Republic) International Olympic Committee members Medalists at the 2000 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1992 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1988 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists in athletics (track and field) Olympic silver medalists in athletics (track and field) Goodwill Games medalists in athletics European Athlete of the Year winners World Athletics Championships winners Competitors at the 2001 Goodwill Games Goodwill Games gold medalists in athletics

Biography

International competitions

See also

References