Real athletes. They had to take holidays to participate in the games. Free

Tomas Paul is an analyst and economist, and his wife, Zuzana, develops personalization and digitization in another bank. Companies have to cope without them for a while. They both took their vacation on time. But not to watch them on TV, but to take part in them.

They work in a bank, they will fight at the Olympics. “We are not outsiders”

A married couple represent their country in a mixed competition. Tomas has been practicing this discipline since the age of 16, when a friend from high school brought him to training. Contrary to appearances, getting into the national team was not difficult in this case. – We don’t even have semi-professional athletes – says Tomas in an interview with the e15.cz portal. Journalists add that around 500 people play curling in the Czech Republic. There are three professional racetracks in Prague and Brno. – Of course they are worse than the best in the world. Curling giants such as Sweden, Scotland, Canada, China and Russia enjoy being full-time professionals, explains the Czech Republic.

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– I transfer my habits from my work as an analyst. Organizing training, evaluating results, planning the season or managing the budget. At the highest level, this is not possible without structured data-driven work. The fact that I am a meticulous person helps me a little and I like to have everything carefully planned and analyzed. So I would say that part of my approach to work is transferred to a sports career, explains Tomas Paul.

The pair go to training about three, sometimes four times a week after work, and go to tournaments every other week. However, just before the Olympic competitions, they took two months of unpaid leave for training and a trip to, which was helped, among others, by sponsor. As they say themselves, they wanted to prepare well and calmly.

– We are neither outsiders nor favorites for gold. Our goal is to place in the middle of the table. All opponents are playable and a lot will depend on your form. We will definitely not be satisfied with just one game we won – explains Tomas. The Czech marriage has already had two matches behind it. In the first one they defeated a pair with, in the second they succumbed to the representatives of Sweden.

This is their first and most probably their last Olympics. Due to the tight schedule, they are ready to limit the number of trainings and performances. In the future, Zuzana would like to devote herself to singing in the choir.