Zatopek, Dana (1922—)

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Zatopek, Dana (1922—)

Czech athlete and political dissident. Name variations: Dana Ingrova Zatopkova; Dana Zatopkova.Born in 1922; married Emil Zatopek (1922–2000, a distance runner); no children.

In one of "the great sporting marriages," Dana and Emil Zatopek shared glory as worldclass athletes and tribulations for their political positions in 1968, during the brief "Prague Spring" reform movement in Czechoslovakia. Dana was an athlete of distinction. Her husband Emil, wrote the London Times, was "one of the greatest distance runners ever to grace the track." At the 1952 summer Olympic Games held in Helsinki, Finland, where Emil won gold medals in the 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters, and the Marathon, Dana won the gold medal in the women's javelin. She also took first place in the javelin at the 1954 European championships and again in 1958 in Stockholm, after her husband had retired from his running career. That same year, she broke the world record in women's javelin that had been held for four years by Soviet athlete Nadezhda Konyayeva . Zatopek's record stood for less than a month, when it was broken on July 24, 1958, by Anna Pazera of Australia.

By the 1960s, the Zatopeks had retired from competitive sports and were national heroes, revered as legendary athletes in the Czechoslovak Republic. The year 1968, however, witnessed a brief attempt, led by Communist reform leader Alexander Dubcek, to humanize the harsh Soviet-based system that had been in power in Czechoslovakia since 1948. Called "the Prague Spring," the liberalization movement attracted many Czechs and Slovaks, including the Zatopeks. Dana and Emil, then a coach in the Czech Army with the rank of colonel, both signed Dubcek's "Manifesto of 2,000 Words," a programmatic statement of the idealistic movement's goals. The two athletes were among the most prominent of the Czechs who lent their prestigious names to indicate support of the reform currents sweeping through the country.

The national euphoria came to a sudden end in August 1968, when Soviet and other Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia to "restore socialism," initiating a two-decade period of repression and neo-Stalinism. Along with thousands of others, Emil appeared in Prague's Wenceslaus Square to protest the presence of Soviet tanks in his homeland. But it was all to no avail. Both he and Dana were now marked for the negative attentions of a petty, harsh bureaucracy bent on systematic repression of liberals and dissenters. Emil was stripped of his army rank and Communist Party membership and lost his job, and the countless cruelties of the regime eroded his and her morale. Both retired in 1980, thereafter living in a state of obscurity and declining health. By the time the Communist regime fell in 1989, the couple's fragile health made it impossible for them to participate in the public life of a fledgling democracy.