Miroslav Januš (born 9 August 1972 in Postupice,

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 ...

) is a Czech sport shooter. A four-time Olympian (1992 to 2004), Janus is one of Czech Republic's most successful individual shooters in Olympic history, having won a bronze medal in the 10 m running target at

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. Outside his Olympic career, Janus has produced a career record of 120 medals in a major international competition, including fourteen golds at the

European Championships A European Championship is the top level international sports competition between European athletes or sports teams representing their respective countries or professional sports clubs. In the plural, the European Championships also refers t ...

, and a total of ten in different color at the Worlds since his debut came as a junior in 1989.

Career

Started shooting at the age of fourteen, Janus ascended to prominence in the international scene as part of the former

team in 1989. By that time, he set a junior world record of 566 in the running target to successfully claim his first ever gold medal at the World Championships in

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. Janus' early rise continued as he improved his personal best by six points for another Worlds title two years later in

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. He made his first Czech team at the

1992 Summer Olympics The 1992 Summer Olympics (, ), officially the Games of the XXV Olympiad (, ) and officially branded as Barcelona '92, were an international multi-sport event held from 25 July to 9 August 1992 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. Beginning in 1994 ...

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, but failed to reach the final in the inaugural 10 m running target, finishing ninth with a score of 572. In 1995, Janus reached the peak of his shooting career by breaking a new world record of 685.5 in the running target to earn a gold medal at the ISSF World Cup meet in

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. Janus' exceptional dominance clearly made him one of the top favorites vying for an Olympic medal at his succeeding Games in

. Indeed, he progressed to the 10 m running target final with a third seed at 580, and then shot brilliantly a 98.4 in the 10-shot round to give the Czechs an Olympic bronze for a total score of 678.4, trailing the Chinese duo of Yang Ling and

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by just a few points. The following season, Janus established his new personal best of 685.7 to assert himself with a blazing first-place finish at the 1997 World Cup final in

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in addition to his third straight victory from the European Championships, erasing his own record that he previously set two years earlier in Seoul by just a slim tenth of a point margin (0.1). Heading to his third Olympic Games in Sydney 2000 with confidence and luck, Janus was expected to be an overwhelming medal favorite for the Czechs, but in the 10 m running target, he put up a lackluster effort with a modest 91.8 on the 10-shot series, that shut him out of the podium to last in the eight-man final, accumulating a total score of 666.8. Earlier, Janus shot a slow-running 293 and a wretched 282 on the fast run to get a fifth-seeded score of 575 for the final. The post-Sydney Olympics period sought a real test and a mighty redemption on Janus at the same shooting range two years later for the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

series. There, he commanded a robust two-point lead over the Russian tandem of Aleksandr Blinov and World champion Dimitri Lykin to claim the gold with 681.7, and secure an Olympic quota place for the

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towards his fourth straight Games. Before the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (), and officially branded as Athens 2004 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece. The Games saw 10,625 athletes ...

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, Janus held off a formidable challenge from Lykin to collect another gold in an Olympic test event at

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, as part of the

series, finishing in the lead at 685.5. Upon entering the Games as an Olympic medal favorite, Janus suddenly crashed out of the men's 10 m running target final with a disastrous feat in the qualifying round. He marked a lowly 283 on the slow-target and 281 on the fast run to finish a startling fifteenth out of 19 shooters with a total score of 564, just fourteen points away from the final cutoff.

Olympic results

References

External links

*
Czech Olympic Team Bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Janus, Miroslav 1972 births Living people Czech male sport shooters Olympic shooters for Czechoslovakia Olympic shooters for the Czech Republic Shooters at the 1992 Summer Olympics Shooters at the 1996 Summer Olympics Shooters at the 2000 Summer Olympics Shooters at the 2004 Summer Olympics Olympic bronze medalists for the Czech Republic Olympic medalists in shooting Medalists at the 1996 Summer Olympics People from Benešov District Sport shooters from the Central Bohemian Region 21st-century Czech sportsmen