Russian and Czech exchange

Even as Russian state-controlled airline Aeroflot was looking to buy Czech Airlines, the Russian hockey team Avangard Omsk is looking to pilfer a Czech coach to nurture the team's star forward Jaromír Jágr.

The Czech national team's head coach Vladimír Růžička, who also works as head coach for the Czech champion club HC Slavia Praha, said he received a call from Russia inquiring whether he would consider taking over Avangard.

"I got a call from a Russian journalist who was asking whether I was aware of Avangard's interest," Růžička said, adding that no specific Avangard official had ever contacted him.

"Even if people from Omsk called me, I would not leave Slavia now," Růžička said.

At the same time, Sparta Praha's head coach, František Výborný, said an Avangard official began talking with him and also with his assistant coach at Sparta Marian Jelínek. In the past, Jelínek worked as Jágr's personal trainer.

"We were talking with them already last fall when they fired coach Sergei Gersonsky, and they contacted us again recently," Výborný said.

Výborný admitted he and Jelínek were getting ready to meet with Jágr in Prague when he comes in early February in order to join the Czech national team for its Feb. 5 game against Finland.

"We'll go to have some coffee and discuss things," Výborný said. He also revealed that Jelínek, in fact, has already talked with Jágr about the coaching offer.

"But it was just a coincidence," Výborný said. "It's not that Jágr is scouting for his coach."

However, Avangard's search for a Czech coach indicates that the club is catering to the 36-year-old forward.

After Jágr's surprise move from the New York Rangers to Siberia-based Avangard Omsk last summer, Avangard's management had great expectations for the season. However, the team has underperformed in the Continental Hockey League (KHL) this season, and the coaching chair has become hot.

Head coach Sergei Gersonsky was fired in mid-September after the team tallied just two wins in the first six games. NHL veteran coach Wayne Fleming stepped in. His hiring was widely interpreted as an effort to please Jágr. Under Fleming, however, the team did not show much improvement, and the club's leaders are obviously looking for a change after the season ends.

If Avangard hired Czech coaches, they would become the second foreign hockey organization to employ a Czech coach for Jágr. In the summer of 2000, National Hockey League's Pittsburgh Penguins appointed Ivan Hlinka head coach in order to better manage Jágr. Hlinka survived just over one season in that position.

Things go both ways, however, as the Czechs currently have their eye on a Russian sports star. Organizers of a star-studded indoor track-and-field meet in Prague announced Jan. 28 that star Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbaeva will be the main box-office draw of the one-day event slated for Prague's O2 Arena Feb. 26. Isinbaeva is amongst the world's best female athletes. She holds the world record for pole vaulting and won the World Championship and the Beijing Olympics last summer. She'll be one of four Olympic champions competing in Prague.

The glamorous competition will be staged in Prague as another high-profile event, the World Skiing Championships, goes on in Liberec at the same time. Organizers of the track-and-field event are hoping strong performances in Prague will be enough to draw fans, as well as media attention.

Isinbaeva is among the biggest hopes.

"We'd like to see her break another world record in Prague," said the event's manager, Alfony Juck. "We'd like to see her clear the magic five meters in Prague. In order to encourage her, we'll set some special bonus for the world record."

Winning winter racing

Off the normal winter sports radar, a Czech, with the help of some friends, scored a major victory in dogsled racing last week.

Radek Havrda and his pack of 23 dogs won the10-day, 1,000 kilometer Le Grande Odyssey race in the French Alps Jan. 21 and, at last check, were prepping for another race in Norway.

"It is hard to train for such an event here in the Czech Republic. … If you want to train in the deep snow, you have to go to the mountains, but there are too many people there. So I usually train at night, when the trails are empty," Havrda told Czech Radio.

Havrda has won the race once before.

František Bouc can be reached at
fbouc@praguepost.com