A Bridge To Long Ago

Emil continued to work for the geological research team. He still was "not available." Invitations would arrive monthly for him to attend this or that event. Not available. Western journalists would ask for interviews. Not available.

"In 1973 Paavo Nurmi [the Finnish distance runner who won nine Olympic gold medals from 1920 to '28] died," Emil says. "There was a memorial race, and the officials wondered who would give the Paavo Nurmi medal? They thought first of Zatopek. They asked if I could come. I finally was allowed to travel."

One trip to honor a former distance runner seemed to open up the possibilities for another. Emil would go from the survey team to the reviewing stand, then back to his shovel. In 1975 he was allowed to go to Paris to receive a medal at a UNESCO function. When he returned, he was approached by someone from the sports ministry. All of this back-and-forth business was too complicated. A job had opened in the ministry. Would he be interested?

"I became a sports spy," Emil says. "I could read all of the languages, so my job was to read foreign sports periodicals to see what the coaches in other countries were doing."

That was what he did until 1982, when he retired at age 60. Reading periodicals. Dana retired at the same time. She found that her pension was very low. She went to officials to complain.

"I told them I had worked for this country for 35 years," she says. "I said I have been a coach, a teacher, a winner of medals. There were people who worked far less than me who had received much better pensions. The officials said, 'Yes, but you signed The 2,000 Words. You never apologized. This is your pension. You will get no more.' "

Emil and Dana have not been much involved in the recent tumultuous changes in their homeland that have, among other things, made him at last "available." This has been a revolution staged by a younger generation. Vera Caslavska, a gold medal gymnast in 1968 in Mexico City , is the most prominent athlete involved. She is an adviser to President Havel. She is about 20 years younger than Emil and Dana.

Earlier this month the defense minister publicly apologized to Zatopek for his dismissal from the army in '68. It took 22 years for him to be rehabilitated. Emil and Dana attended one huge rally on the Letna Plains near the Sparta soccer stadium. The crowd was estimated at more than half a million people. Some of them spotted Emil and told him to go to the stage and speak. He is an animated, powerful speaker, with his words still tinged by his Moravian accent. He declined. He said it was time for other people to be on the stage.

"Our hope is that all will be quiet and we can live the last years of our life in a democracy," Dana says. "We hope for peace and good health."

Emil wishes the sciatic nerve condition in his left leg would clear so that he would be able to run again. Dana is in fine shape. She runs and swims and skis. Emil already has traveled to San Sebastian , Spain , to receive a medal. He has been invited to Australia , to Israel , to Greece . He will see how he feels.