In April, the Czech Photo Administrative and Supervisory Board chose an image by photographer Bára Reichová. She documented the activities of athletes during the state of emergency for the Czech Olympic Committee.
Foto: Barbora Reichová / ČOV – Indomitable Olympians
“This photo of hurdler Zuzana Hejnová was taken as part of a project called Indomitable Olympians, which I was focusing on over the entire period the state of emergency was in force in the Czech Republic. The idea behind the series was to document the training of leading Czech athletes for whom training halls, gyms, pools and the places where their training normally took place had been closed overnight. Zuzana Hejnová made use of her apartment’s terrace and constructed a kind of improvised gym there with her boyfriend, which included hurdles. I undertook one afternoon training session of more than an hour with Zuzana, in which she didn’t just work on her technique, but also worked to build up her strength. I took photos of her on the terrace, I climbed onto the building’s roof and at the end of the session when I was leaving I asked her if she could do one more barbell set and I’d try taking a photo of it from the street in front of the building. In the end, it paid off and to some extent this almost final photo in the series seems iconic for this particular time and the situation in which athletes found themselves,” says Barbora Reichová.
Barbora Reichová works as an official photographer for the Czech Olympic Team. Prior to that, she was a part of the Sport newspaper’s newsroom for almost 15 years. She studied at a secondary photography school in Prague, and currently studies at the Silesian University in Opava’s Institute of Creative Photography. She has documented many major sporting events around the world and has been involved in four Olympic Games. She holds a Czech Press Photo Award for Sports Photograph of the Year, and also holds a Fair Play award.