The motto of this year's Sokol Run of the Republic, "Nothing as an individual, together - everything!", was followed to the letter. The 4th edition of the renewed Sokol tradition was enjoyed by thousands of runners all over the Czech Republic and far beyond its borders. The nice sunny weather in large part of the Czech Republic and the enthusiasm of those who decided to celebrate the establishment of the Republic was what helped everyone to enjoy doing sport.
The main race held in Prague proved very popular with Sokol members and the general public, with a total of 522 runners standing at the start line on 28th October. The colourful programme at Tyršův dům, the headquarters of the Czech Sokol community, started off at 11 am with the children’s races. A total of 135 little competitors took to the start in categories of up to 6, 10 and 14 years of age. The big moment and the culmination of the joint celebration came at 2 pm when several thousand runners at 53 places in the Czech Republic stood at the start to start running at the same time. Just before the start, there was an online greeting by the ambassadors involved in the run in other locations, such as Ivana Večeřová from Brno, Radek Liška from Terezín or Veronika Preti from Kačice.
The starting shot in Prague was fired by the mayor of the Czech Sokol Community, Hana Moučková, together with the chairman of the Sports Department, Jan Haupt. Hana says about the race: “It makes me genuinely happy to see the number of runners at the event increasing every year. The run follows the first so-called Rozestavný běh, a run from 1919. We celebrate the anniversary of the establishment of the Republic with movement as is typical for us in Sokol. I think that the beautiful weather also contributed to the spectacular celebration of the anniversary of the Republic, and 160 years of the Sokol organisation.” Afterward 387 runners, including athletes David Svoboda, Martin Koukal, Radek Šlouf and Jiří Ježek, made their way uphill to Petřínské Sady. Czech senator Pavel Fischer was also present at the start.
The fact that one of the values of Sokol is cohesion was confirmed by runners from all corners of the world when they donated more than 100,000 CZK to “sister” Valinka, who is fighting cerebral palsy. There is no doubt that this generous sum will help her pay for her costly treatment and necessary rehabilitation. Besides, competitors and the public at the Prague race in the ČEZ Energy Zone made another CZK 51,584 by cycling on handbikes. The head of the Sports Department of the Czech Sokol Community, Jan Haupt, and moderator Lucie Výborná were among those who helped in the final race.
Thousands of runners and hundreds of organisers joined forces on the festive day to celebrate the tradition and also to show that we can stick together even in today’s fast-paced times. In most of the places which have participated in this year’s celebration of movement, runs will have finished after today, but there will still be places that will celebrate! Brothers and sisters from Washington, DC, San Francisco, Lisbon and Zurich will run at the weekend of October 29 and 30. After that we can say, see you at the start next year!
