The Czech Republic first participated at the Olympic Games as an independent nation in 1994, and has competed in every Summer Olympic Games and Winter Olympic Games since then. Prior to the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, Czech athletes had competed at the Olympics from 1920 to 1992 as Czechoslovakia and from 1900 to 1912 as Bohemia.
Athletes from the Czech Republic have won a total of 43 medals at the Summer Games, with canoeing, athletics and shooting as the top medal-producing sports. The nation has also won 16 medals at the Winter Games, mostly in cross-country skiing, speed skating and ultimately popular ice hockey. In terms of medal count the most decorated Czech Olympian within the post-Czechoslovak period is cross-country skier Kateřina Neumannová (6 medals between 1998 and 2006).
The National Olympic Committee for the Czech Republic is the Czech Olympic Committee, which was originally founded in 1899 and recognized in its current form by the International Olympic Committee in 1993.
Famous quotes containing the words czech and/or republic:
“I’m neither Czech nor Slovak ... I’m still trying to figure out who I am. I think I’m Jewish. But first I want to be human.”
—Natasha Dudinska (b. c. 1967)
“People think they have taken quite an extraordinarily bold step forward when they have rid themselves of belief in hereditary monarchy and swear by the democratic republic. In reality, however, the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy.”
—Friedrich Engels (1820–1895)