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

track and field Track and field (or athletics in British English) is a sport that includes Competition#Sports, athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name used in North America is derived from where the sport takes place, a ru ...

athlete who competed in the javelin throw. He is a

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and Olympic champion and holds the world record with a throw of . Widely considered 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 (; ) is a city in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 47,000 inhabitants. It lies on the left bank of the Jizera (river), Jizera River. Mladá Boleslav is the second most populated city in the region. I ...

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

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

1992 1992 was designated as International Space Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 – Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt replaces Javier Pérez de Cuéllar of Peru as United Nations Secretary-General. * January 6 ** The Republ ...

, 1996 and

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

Summer Olympic Games The Summer Olympic Games, also known as the Summer Olympics or the Games of the Olympiad, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The 1896 Summer Olympics, inaugural Games took place in 1896 in Athens, ...

. 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 year's most prominent event was 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. The United States led a Participan ...

. 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, Sergey Makarov, Boris Henry, Seppo Räty, Raymond Hecht and Aki Parviainen. Železný planned to retire after the 2006 European Championships in

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, 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 and is the former coach of Barbora Špotáková. Four days after winning a gold medal at the 1996 Olympics, Železný had a tryout as a

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

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with the

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at Fulton County Stadium. 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

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zelezny, Jan 1966 births Living people Sportspeople from Mladá Boleslav Athletes from the Central Bohemian Region Czechoslovak male javelin throwers Czech male javelin throwers Czech athletics coaches Olympic athletes for 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 for 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) Czech 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 Czechoslovak Athletics Championships winners Czech Athletics Championships winners 21st-century Czech sportsmen

Biography

International competitions

See also

References

External links