Final Word from Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Pres. Milan Jirásek of the Czech Olympic Committee told Rádio
Impuls that it would be a very good outcome if the Czech team
won six medals in London. It would be the same as last time, he
said, and spending on Czech sports has not risen much while
sports performances in the world have kept improving. Blesk
tabloid is more optimistic and expects Czechs to win 10 medals.
The Wall Street Journal goes one further and expects 11 medals
overall, including three golds. Federalists can lament the
breakup of Czechoslovakia 20 years ago, because a combined
Czech-Slovak team would win six golds and a total of 20 medals
(for 15th place overall), according to the WSJ. Of course if you
accept Pavel Rychetský's idea of "shared sovereignty," the CR will
have dibs on all of the EU's 91 projected gold medals. That's
more than the U.S. and China combined. Enough to make a
europhile simply burst with pride.[Czech Republic European Union United States Summer Games
Olympics]
Glossary of difficult words
federalist - an advocate or supporter of federalism (meaning Czech-Slovak, and not European, in this context);
to lament - to express one's deep grief about something;
to have dibs on - to have a claim or right to something.