Czech Television
State Cinematography Fund
A new day of socialist Czechoslovakia has begun.
To be on the concrete. To whizz through space. To have it all in motion.
Have it in blurs and in flashes.
No need for waves, for a ski slope, or a team.
And that’s the way you like it. Skateboard.
I wanted to do something freely, without anyone saying: 3, 2, 1 go!
A young person yearns for one thing. Freedom!
This country was inaccessible to anything from the West.
This was a whiff of America.
It was something that had never existed here.
And it made people who owned it really special.
This was a gift from my friend for my 50th birthday.
It’s an old model from the U.S. I can’t even guess the year.
But as you can see it was made of one rollerskate
but the iron wheels are pretty special. Probably without bearings.
It’s riveted so it must have been meant to be made as a skateboard.
-A bit small. -I’ll try to jump on it. Carefully.
-I might try... -An ollie?
Yep! It’s fucked. I knew it.
I’ll glue it back later. The tail edge.
I didn’t mean to. The original is broken.
Oh well. We’ll glue it together.
This was everything to me. I even quit hang gliding.
Then I quit playing in a brass band. This is the love of my life.
I want to show you a part of the historical equipment.
Here on top I have the latest thing.
This is a modern gem, a composite board.
And now check the stark contrast.
These are the boards from our very beginnings.
We’d fashion them after drawings in ABC or VTM magazines.
Let me take it all out.
Throughout the years I rode all these boards here.
Jeez. What do we have here?
This is really a great one but you honestly cannot ride it.
It’s one of the old boards I found in my attic.
I have no idea where I got this.
See? I told you this one is no good. It just keeps getting jammed.
Awful. It was awful back then too.
I would do sprints but then I had troubles with my back.
I always say skateboarding and snowboarding cured me.
Adrenaline, adrenaline, adrenaline.
Plus, it was a capitalist sport and a minority sport.
It actually wasn’t a sport back then.
That was a different world.
It was the year 1976. Our dad had lived in the US for eight years by then
and I had never seen this thing in our country before.
I didn’t see it in the U.S. either but someone said to our dad:
“Have you bought them a skateboard?” And he said: “What is it?”
Fifth grade. I was in the fifth grade.
In winter I practised in the kitchen and then in spring outside.
It was love at first sight.
I started here when I was 13, 14. Dunno. Who’d remember that?
Man, that was something completely different. Brand new.
This is how it works. So I hopped on it and rode. Left, right, done.
You see, I’m a good skier.
I skied since I was five and I loved it so much I could see skis everywhere.
In summer we missed the turns and these movements
so skateboard was the perfect alternative.
We simply skied on the board.
I saw a skateboard for the first time as a boy in a newsreel in cinema.
I was in awe seeing skateboarders play basketball and do high jumps.
Skateboarding is a new sport. It was invented by American boys
who fastened two pairs of wheels on a board and started gliding
just like surfers on an ocean waves. But on a dry land and downhills.
On these skateboards you can also play handball.
You just rode and felt happy because you were moving.
It’s in the moves which are specific.
It’s kind of like good sex.
I LOVE SEX
We are asking Mr Rybář from Canneries and Distilleries
-why there is a lack of ketchup. -If I hadn’t kids I’d never queue here.
Comrade Sedláček asks why there is a lack of jam jars.
-How long have you been queueing here? -Only since 8am.
Now it’s 11:30. And there’s nothing but the scales and water here.
At the moment there are no skateboards delivered on our market.
A year ago we had some knee pads, elbow pads and helmets
but not a thing ever since.
Back then the wheels were made of some weird hard stuff,
definitely not polyurethane.
Trucks were just metal plates which were kind of bent.
And we would cut the board off some plywood.
We just tried various combinations.
These are street boards on which we rode little ramps
and this is a hand-painted board based on an original.
We used to copy Western designs which we liked back then.
And we would put the hip brands on our boards to make it look alike.
As for better boards, they would come to those who were lucky,
who sent begging letters to American or German companies,
some guys would send crystal, or glass, or all kinds of crap.
In exchange for a skateboard.
I remember when I got the first parcel with Kryptonics wheels.
It felt like a small miracle. Such a thing was impossible to get.
I had to wait. I was waiting for a month, two, half a year
because they sent it by sea mail. I thought they blew it off
and then it suddenly arrived and I got the mammon. Original!
Wheels, that was an extreme issue.
Even those who knew the ropes had troubles obtaining wheels.
Wheels make a good skateboard.
If you look at these stripes, it’s not some skidproof trick,
the wheels are simply made of pucks. We would call them “puckpals”.
It was a nylon core with bearings and a pressure hose pulled on it.
That was our wheel.
-We’d lathe them from sledgehammers. -Or from grenades.
We’d lathe bearings from a grenade.
Good wheels must turn well.
You can easily go 40 miles an hour downhills. If you’re a good skater.
If you fall on your head and you’re not wearing a helmet
you get a lisp after some time.
Suddenly some places in Prague
were swarmed by guys with home-made skateboards.
Back then it was a big rebellion because in the era of communism
you weren’t allowed to even lie down in a park.
People were scolding us for riding on sidewalks etc.
“You’re kicking up a rumpus.” “Your wheels are ruining roads.”
“Piss off! Let us sleep!” That was a classic back then.
We’d set the wheels in motion, stopped abruptly behind some chicks,
wheels squealing, girls screaming.
And we’d have a blast, you know.
They had no idea and we looked like fools.
Excuse me, there used to be this fire reservoir once.
That would be so cool if we found a piece of the old pool.
We’re getting closer. I can smell it.
Excuse me, can I ask you something?
There used to be a small water reservoir here. Never heard of it?
Are these the blocks of flats? They look it, right?
Look, these two and this one.
And this must have been out there.
It doesn’t look wrong, right? These must be the blocks of flats.
-Boys, do you ride skateboards? -No. -Why? You prefer football?
-Yes, football is better. -Football players make more money.
Yeah.
Where is our pool? Where is it?
The pool in Karlovy Vary, it was almost like California.
Well, not really but good enough.
Our first attempts to ride up, turn around and glide down,
or do some grinds. We couldn’t practice anywhere else.
There were no ramps back then,
they were built much later.
So this was the only way to ride some kind of waves.
Otherwise we’d have to ride downhills, or do curbs, stairs
but if you wanted some style, some feeling, this was the place.
I can’t remember it at all.
-Remember the plywood ramp? -Yeah, made just of the doors.
That was actually King Skate, the whole thing was made of doors
and some braces, some scaffold.
Then we moved it over there. But the first one stood here.
The first bigger ramp was here, right where I’ve put the board.
It wasn’t a classic half-pipe but just a curb ramp
which was made of three doors.
It was hammered together with nails with big heads.
Our riding would make it springy and the nails would gradually pull out
and when you fell down it would strip you like a grater
so we’d have bloody back or hips. The nails were flesh-shredders.
You’d go to a building site nearby, steal some blocks of plywood
and we’d try to nail them together.
Someone managed to get a permit to build a welded half-pipe
and it was a real iron monument.
Strahov was an amazing spot.
It was up on a hill, just stadiums and no one around.
-Only the Spartakiade got in our way. -That was the only problem. It was 1980
and they decided we had to dismantle the whole thing
so we wrote ČSS 1980 on the half-pipe.
They closed the stadium, enclosed it by police cordons,
only the masses were allowed to enter.
Prague and our whole country lived and breathed Spartakiade.
For Spartakiade is not only a sports event.
It is also a great manifestation of our people’s unity,
of our loyalty to socialism and trust in our happy future.
It was awful because they banned skateboarding.
They put a chain on our half-pipe so we covered it with a metal plate
and rode anyway.
Skateboard was a huge symbol.
And an escape to a feeling of freedom
because we didn’t get to live in a free country this way.
But we could experience a great adventure.
That’s why we had so many followers, why people would come to Strahov.
It wasn’t because of us riding and horsing around. It was the freedom.
People would simply come there to experience the “what ifs”.
That was the general feeling there.
That’s what made it so special. “The boys are daring, we want it too.”
That’s how I see it.
On my 18th birthday my father gave me a cubic metre of wood
so me and my friends built the first ramp and a half-pipe here.
Fashioned after the thing which was originally in Strahov.
Here in Březiny we also painted a line 20 centimetres below the edge
and wrote “King Skate” there.
Whoever got all four wheels above the line was called King Skate.
On summer holidays we’d organize a camp, people built tents around
and spent a week or two here. It was open for everyone.
The river was dammed with kegs of beer so we could drink
and we would ride for dear life.
Once we ran out of beer we’d pack our stuff and go home.
The underage kids got together in pretty big gangs.
Some gangs have 10, 12 underage members.
We might say that each member of the gang was quite unique.
And that was appreciated.
We came from various intellectual backgrounds. There were boys
whose dads worked in factories, boys whose fathers were writers.
But there were also illicit moneychangers with long fringes.
But no one cared, people talked to each other no matter what.
It would always click right away.
Once I saw a guy with a skateboard I’d always start talking to him.
It’s the thing among people like Saab drivers. Those who own something special.
You didn’t even have to spot the board.
Once you saw the scuffed shoes you knew the guy was a skateboarder.
We started talking and I knew I had a place to stay.
I divided skateboarders into nutcases and friends.
But mostly it was about friendship.
There was always something to talk about and it was really nice.
No matter how many silly ideas came up people would just go for it.
Skateboarders are still a gang. Everywhere they go riding they stick together.
Those who rode were accepted
but if you were just a poser you were finished.
Youth is a joy of speed and motion.
On your feet, or on some wheels.
If the wheels are small and attached to a small board, it is called a skateboard.
Those enchanted by skateboards had a summer rendez-vous in Prachatice.
During one week they exchanged their experiences from half-pipe,
checked out the others’ tricks, turns and jumps.
So the concrete is still here. Pretty interesting way of gardening.
I hope the owner is not coming after us with a gun.
Sure enough, people were sitting on the railing, cheering,
a friend was cooling beer in the pool because it was his birthday.
Many beautiful stories took place here.
Ironically when we were looking for a spot to build a ramp,
a half-pipe, where we could do slaloms,
we had to go to our town hall which was occupied by communists.
There was no other way to do it. But until they knew what this would develop into
they wouldn’t give us dirty looks.
They were actually glad something was happening and were pretty helpful.
ČSTV, Svazarm, schools, municipal offices and other organizations
had to use all possibilities for sports provided by the socialist society.
We were different because we didn’t belong to any unions,
we were just boys in a park.
Regulations of a skateboarding club, duties of club members.
To represent the club impeccably in all spheres of its activity,
to develop one’s qualification and fitness and to promote our sport.
To actively participate in events organized by one’s club.
To pay dutifully club dues and ČSTV dues 200 crowns a year,
pupil dues 100 crowns a year. Due date... Blah blah blah blah.
This is just a piece of paper.
We just went on the same way
but now we could do legally organized competitions,
legally organized fun.
Each competition was a blast.
The most important thing was to actually meet the people.
I remember my first competition in Karlovy Vary
where I saw slaloms, high jumps and long jumps for the first time.
This is the place of our competitions.
The Czechoslovakian Championship.
The place wasn’t so flattened out. It was just a steep hill.
Here by this awful, huge, beautiful, empty pavilion
there was our launch ramp.
And this is where we’d do high jumps.
It used to be nice here.
You’d set the board in motion by quick movements
and then you’d keep the speed or just go even faster.
At the first competitions we’d do high jumps, long jumps.
Those were the events.
-Weird events. -Yeah, they were weird.
I could even do turns back then. Now it’s not that great anymore.
Things like this.
We’d also do these... Sitting... What’s the silly thing called?
Oh, Catamaran.
Let me grab this poor invalid. Jesus, I’m so sorry about this.
I’ll just sit on it as if it was a big skateboard.
Careful, fellow!
Man! Like this. Like this.
You’d have to mind your fingers so you don’t run over them.
-And we’d go downhills. -Really silly.
But we’d ride even ramps like this.
Hang on, let me... Hang on!
I was a high jump champion.
There are three registered records, one of them belongs to Luděk Váša
and one is mine, 155 centimetres.
People are competitive, you know.
Everyone wants to win, to be faster and better than the others.
I’d win the high jumps pretty often.
Luděk deserves a song for his performance and prestige promotion.
-Luděk, do you like popular music? -I do.
Long jump is an awful event. You use a footstop
and jump to another board. If you take off too late it just tears your back off
and you’ll end up face down. Excellent thing, really technical.
It’s kind of a small murder.
You fell down and your socks dropped. Those were terrible falls.
The jumps were always a big hit.
Sometimes we’d collect money. Girls would walk around with a hat
and then we’d buy something. Well, it was a wild ride.
Once I came home from an event, all gloomy and my dad said:
“You came in second, right? It was about time.”
I’d always win. It was fun.
Commendations and medals. Classic.
We organized “Vysočina Cup” and the winner got Vysočina salami.
Whatever we could get our hands on.
It was a nice feeling to win and enjoy the 15 minutes of fame
and life went on.
We would ride the board all the time. To school, from school, always.
Then there came the competitions and I must say I was pretty good.
I won a few slalom races. That was my thing.
This is a great relic. A piece by Petr Kotting.
This girdler made it for “The Strahov Grand Prix” event.
And these are the names of winners.
The first one was Petr Forman in 1979, then Milan Milesík
and the third winner was me.
It was a matter of prestige.
Once you won something in that age, you were the boss.
It was nice.
The competition was a big deal for us.
Everyone feels that these are the moments when you must win.
I wasn’t into competitions too much. Mostly I did exhibitions,
or things I enjoyed. I just wanted to have fun.
Because I was a naughty pupil, my parents would get notes
but I just did anything to prevent the class from boredom.
Once again like every year marches resounded in Chrudim square,
playing for newbies on the occasion of their military oath.
Most of the boys will now go to their units all over the country
and start fulfilling next tasks.
What a change. From my free life on a skateboard I rode into the drill.
-Not very nice, trust me. -I had a good doctor.
She gave me some papers saying I was totally washed-up.
Plus some allergy and that was it.
That saved my ass!
I was very ill.
They recruited a healthy man immediately.
But... It depended.
There were various ways to sort this out and...
I was very ill.
The professional soldiers left the barracks in the evening
and terror began.
But that chapter isn’t about skateboarding anymore.
The good thing was that my friend Martin Kopecký, chairman of our club
who is in the skateboard heaven,
he’d invite me to competitions where I could relax a bit.
We were always against organized stuff.
We would be more like clans, or... be organized in our own way.
I’d say we did what we wanted.
We didn’t care about socialism.
The only thing we had to do when we planned competitions
was to ask for permission,
we’d mostly use the Union of Youth or something as a fig leaf
because otherwise they wouldn’t let us use squares as venues.
And Martin Kopecký actually pushed skateboarding through
at the Central Committee of the UY.
Our skateboarding dealt with two big problems.
One is a lack of materials.
As you can see in this footage a skateboard must endure a lot.
In our country you practically could not get any quality skateboards.
The old Esarol brand is fit for moving furniture, that’s all.
We competed only here in the Czechoslovakia. It’s a pity.
He was a rad organiser,
an interesting person who could weld people together into a team.
He could unobtrusively dig the best qualities out of people.
I created a system of The Czechoslovakian Cup,
I established certain rules so that things could be happening.
When Claus Grabke and then Shane Rouse came here
and started showing us their tricks we were staring at them in awe
because we’d never seen it before.
Those guys were absolute role models.
Plus, they never behaved like prima donnas, you know?
They were here to get the skate into this country, to make it work.
“You wanna know this and that?” “Yes, please. Show it to me again.”
“You mean that trick? I haven’t done it for years but I’ll try my best.”
A year later Mark Gonzales came here to Summer Camp.
He arrived, did an ollie 360, landed on his feet and rode on.
We were stoked, shrieking “What now?”,
we just lapped it up like this.
Someone who could speak English came to him and said...
Actually, not to him, he just said:
“If we had such equipment we could do this as well.”
And he just looked around and came to this young kid
with the kind of board I showed you earlier, the one with puck wheels,
and even on this board he was able to fly a meter above the ramp.
And then he told us: “See, guys, it’s not just about the equipment.”
We fraternized with them
so we got to get cheaper skateboards, or their old ones.
And suddenly you were able to start doing the same tricks they did.
It’s like when you haven’t seen someone for five years
and then you meet him and it feels like a week.
I haven’t seen Shane since...
Since 1987 I guess.
It’s 2017 now. So it’s been 30 years?
It’s not worth adjusting.
It’s all in the legs.
Fooling like this in your old age?
Aren’t you going to ride?
You have to ride as if it wasn’t there.
-Good advice is better than gold. -As always, right?
Well, Thiele Junior.
What is your training level for high jump? How much did you do?
-85. -85. And how about your dad?
Hundred...
-125, I guess. -No shit.
Your dad’s a badass.
Turn it off, man.
-I’ve just found out. -What did he say?
Junior jumps 85 and you do 120 at trainings.
-It was just a practice. -Yeah, right. Practice.
-Did you really do 120? -Well, it was only a practice. -Only.
Only.
You mustn’t give such information away.
This is gonna be a wipe-out.
That’s how the champs ride, man! Cool, man.
Great job. You’re the best.
Nowadays when there is an event somewhere I always ask is there a party afterwards?
I’m not going to travel that far to watch people compete
and then just say goodbye and go home. Nope. Not even today.
Back then there was no way to do an event without an after-party.
We’d reunite after a month and there’d be hugging, kissing
and that’s where a never-ending party started.
Sometimes the competition just developed into a huge party.
We’d “eat” beer. A lot of beer was “eaten” there.
I remember that awesome goulash which was served in coffee cups.
Goulash with spaghetti. We’d always look forward to that.
Some people would bring canned food to the events.
Chinese luncheon meat and stuff.
But back then everything was quite cheap. Food, beer.
Beer for one crown seventy.
On Friday you’d set off with 200 crowns in your pocket,
you’d come home with 20 crowns after a gnarly weekend.
It might have been Martin Kopecký, our biggest guru back then,
who came up with an idea of Bikini Contest.
We pulled tables together, put white sheets over to make a catwalk,
skateboarders with pens and papers sat in the first row as a jury
picking the most beautiful girl. they were all young and beautiful.
The girl who went topless and had awesome breasts won.
Not many girls rode skateboards back then, it was a boys sport.
You got all dirty and bruised, it just didn’t suit girls.
I also preferred them to stand aside, look nice and watch us ride.
I’m not a fan of female skateboarders. But some of them look hot anyway.
For me as the only girl among boys it was hard on the one hand
because I’d compete with boys and always ended up at the bottom.
There was no women category.
But otherwise I felt fine, I would rouse an interest
being a woman who could ride.
Little girls play with dolls, real girls ride skateboards.
How about you? How about you? How about you?
“Get me a bottle of coke and this will be a perfect America,” Bezbol yawns.
“Get me three chicks and this will be a cool party,” Jerry grins.
It’s kind of high-flown but that’s the way it was back then.
What a beautiful drawing. A skateboarder in the night air
and a lot of women in lit-up windows.
Our dreams, our wet mornings...
Football players had great bodies but we were just crazy
and we were aware of it.
So picking up a girl was...
My friend Simon Thiele said we were something like rock stars.
Cities would hand us their prettiest girls.
When one managed to win at some event, well...
that was counted as a success.
I mean girls never want to date a guy who always loses.
Some guys liked to use the fact that they rode skateboards
and there were always girls who’d cling to the skateboarder.
We’d call them “stickers”.
When I arrived to the event in Hrádek nad Nisou I saw playboy Luděk Váša there,
this handsome athlete, a head taller than me and said:
“Guys...” Sure, he was drunk.
“Don’t bring your girls in here, or we’ll fuck them all.”
Things went pretty well with girls back then. It was pretty good.
Me and Roman Bagin decided to create this club called “Ain’t Putting Out”.
We’d just wouldn’t give a damn about those chicks.
Two months later
I was automatically transferred into “Ain’t Getting None” club.
And this club is really tough to leave.
It’s the classic “Karlíček never fucks” so unfortunately that was it for me.
It took style most of all.
It might have been the feeling of uniqueness
that made our gang dress in a crazier way than others.
But it might also have something to do with the era because back then,
maybe even before I got my first skateboard, there came punk rock.
We were called The Dry Brains...
“My ear’s covered in blood I pierced it myself...”
-Well, songs like this. -We needed a leader, a singer.
And we got the best one we could.
I was such a lazy bastard...
When you do punk it’s ok if you don’t sing in tune.
-A garage style. -It’s all about your image.
All the bands were banned so if you wanted to do a gig
you had to play your songs for some five, or six people who’d say:
“You must change this verse.” A classic censorship.
No regime which lays such claims
and dictates people what to do can be considered normal.
YOUNGSTERS WITH A QUESTION MARK
They live among us. Years ago they were a rarity.
Nowadays we get to meet them more often, especially in larger cities.
Their appearance brings out a smile, sometimes repulsion, fear, even shock.
Punk was very often connected to skateboarding.
There was the influence. To be different and to provoke.
That was the right thing. To be different.
To be the best in being different, and all the adrenalin on top of it.
And of course, we loved provoking the cops.
When you do something non-standard you always get into troubles with cops.
Skateboarding was non-standard back then. And it still is, right?
They did it out of boredom. They’d walk around and kept checking
and when they came across such a weird guy they had to stop him.
Roman Bagin was just...
He was a kid who... He was the Czech Sid Vicious.
He killed himself. A long time ago. Such a sensitive guy.
It’s a common mistake to think that those people were crazy, or uneducated.
It was the other way around. They were much more sensitive
who suffered in the lack of freedom.
And for them this was the only way to stand up against it.
And they’d be punished.
But they just kept showing people to be true to themselves.
I think he was the first graffiti artist in the Czech Republic.
I was blown away by his tag. He wrote Bagin as 13QFIN.
He did it in the film Snow Bitches and the footage was sent to Jake Burton
who has been using 13 instead of letter B since then.
This information about number 13 was delivered to Burton by Luděk Váša.
And that’s a fact.
Bagin would also run around Pernink with a black spray tagging snow.
These people were a huge inspiration for others. Maybe even role models.
I think people seek their idols.
This person influenced me in everything I do.
He introduced punk and things like Tristan Tzara to me
and showed me that Dadaism was the real punk.
Lenin was another punker, one of the regulars at Voltaire Cabaret.
Bagin simply showed me the way.
I realized that being a punker doesn’t mean just punk music
but you need to have some general knowledge.
Then he got into a trouble when they found him on a bridge,
he spent some time in a loony bin and then two weeks at my place.
And then I talked to his mum so this is a sensitive issue for me.
Soul is really hard to cure, man.
After years 1982-84 when I was doing my military service
the repressions got stronger.
I’d get letters about boys being arrested, things got tough.
Once you met a cop you got busted.
If their van was full you were lucky because someone else took your place.
Sometimes they’d just let you go. Sometimes they’d call another van.
And after 1984 they eased up.
They couldn’t keep up any longer.
The state just had to accept skateboarding officially.
In 1986 Vancouver hosted an exhibition called
“The World in Touch, the World in Motion”.
There they even organized the first World Cup of Skateboarding.
One of the various events was also high jump
where Luděk Váša, the Czechoslovakian team member, won a gold medal.
I participated as a professional so I was to supposed to get 500 USD
but they took it away from me saying they’d paid the flight tickets.
But the problem was that we only had a flight ticket from Toronto
so they finally gave us at least some money for a bus ride.
But I was happy to compete with Tony Hawk who won that time.
It was just a totally different world.
What a beautiful award. How high did you have to jump for it?
-5,1 feet. -In metric system? -155 centimetres.
-How did it feel to win? -I couldn’t believe it. Then came joy.
In Canada everyone told us
they’d never seen a Czechoslovakian citizen coming back to his country.
They immediately offered us jobs in some skateboard factory.
But I said we can’t let down all the skateboarders here.
None of them would ever get a chance to go abroad because of us.
So we came back. That event helped us get white cards,
we could travel to any events we wanted to.
I never wanted to emigrate.
I enjoyed being here with my mates. We made our own America here.
No one had ever tortured me here. I could do anything I wanted.
No one had ever tried to drive me into becoming a snitch,
sure, they tried to lure me to join the communist party
but I’d say I didn’t feel ready and that was that. I’d never ever become a commie.
So I think if anything had really bothered me I’d have done a runner.
But I personally felt kind of free.
Once we started travelling abroad I got to meet many immigrants.
And none of them were doing great.
All of them were scraping along, looking forward to go back home.
But they couldn’t. It was pretty tough for them, too.
Passport control often finds items made by sabotage groups on trains.
These items are lying about in aisles, in compartments and toilets.
Leaflets were found describing the Western society as something of a paradise,
appealing to youngsters to leave our country,
for refusing to join military service,
appealing for criminal activities against the state.
People who close the borders and take away your freedom...
That’s bad enough, isn’t it?
Everything was becoming a problem
and it got even those you honoured, or those who didn’t have to do it.
For all kinds of reasons, for a career, for family they joined the party
because they knew it was their only chance. Or they emigrated.
So, is this normal? It’s not normal.
We left this country knowing we could never come back.
So we said goodbye to a part of our family, others were unaware
because we didn’t know how they’d react.
I met a few friends before I left and it was clear I’d never come back
but it was a very weird secret.
My brother was at the farewell party.
My mum knew about me and dad didn’t. Dad knew about Simon but mum didn’t.
So, you go on the very last date with your girl and you cannot tell her.
Let’s get to the nicer aspects of sport.
Prague is the first socialist capital
to host the best European skateboarders at Euroskate 1988.
Euroskate was put together by me and Martin Kopecký.
We went for a beer and came up with an idea of a big event here.
Today’s programme of the unofficial European Cup had 8000 spectators.
Our contestants rank well in Europe.
Especially in slalom, in free style.
Halfpipe isn’t so good but hopefully we’ll make it there, too.
It’s a well-known fact that we excel in high jump.
Nothing is definite yet, Luděk Váša has the last attempt.
I’m just so happy that
the event here in Prague went well,
that despite the organizational chaos and running around this hall
it came down to this success in front of the audience here.
The event really was a success.
Even people from Western Europe were very appreciative
of the organization, size and functionality of all aspects.
Plus, it was broadcast live on TV. Unlike the Western-European events.
Finally! Finally! Finally! Finally!
After the Velvet Revolution many things changed,
skateboarding goods were imported to Czechoslovakia.
I started to leave this commune and turned toward snowboarding
because each sport starts as fun but once money gets involved
all the fun disappears.
The friendships are gone, it’s all about money and things get bad.
Everyone wanted to make money because it was possible
but they forgot about the spirit, about the feeling of freedom.
Skateboarding is freedom, not hard work and big money
and once you have the money you become friends with moneybags
to be even better.
In the 1980’s we were free but in 1990’s we couldn’t bear the weight of freedom.
The freedom was too much to handle.
Some people just couldn’t deal with it. I think I’m one of them.
DEDICATED TO ROMAN BAGIN (1986) AND MARTIN KOPECKÝ (2013)