Anton Tkáč
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| Born |
30 March 1951 Lozorno, Czechoslovakia (now part of Slovakia) |
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| Current team | Retired | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Discipline | Track cycling | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Role | Rider | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Medal record
Anton Tkáč
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Anton Tkáč (born 30 March 1951) is a retired track cyclist from Slovakia, who claimed the gold medal for Czechoslovakia in the men's Match Sprint event at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Canada when in the final he defeated eight time World Champion Frenchman Daniel Morelon. In this discipline he also won three World Champion titles: in 1974 in Montreal, in 1976 in Ostuni, Italy, and in 1978 in Munich, Germany.
Tkáč started cycling in the 1 km time trial discipline (sometimes called "standing start"). The most successful Czechoslovak sprint cyclist was originally in sports school in the capital city of Bratislava where he focused in athletics and mainly ran sprints. The 1 km time trial came by accident when, on a borrowed bike, he won the race in the recruitment city suburb. Soon he was recruited by Slovan Bratislava cycling club where he rode and trained on the track in the 1 km time trial discipline. Despite severe injuries he soon convinced his abilities after winning numerous national championships and in 1969 he was nominated for the World Championships, held in Brno, Czechoslovakia. After achieving the eighth place at his first World Championship, it was very disappointing for him and the inherent stubbornness threw himself into hard training and preparing for another world championship. The following year at the 1970 World Championship in Leicester, England he has already stood on the podium, with bronze medal, while the silver medal escaped from him by astonishing 0.02 seconds.
After the sixth and thirteenth place at next world championships, he started in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany. Two weeks before the national team's departure to the Olympics, Tkac suffered another more serious injury, heavily bruising his hip after falling at high speed during a practice run and as a consequence he finished 13th place in the 1 km time trial. After the Munich Olympic Games he changed his discipline from "mindless" pedaling of 1 km to the more creative “match sprint”, which always lured him far more for ultimate speed. His lost battles, with match sprint all time legend, Daniel Morelon of France at the 1973 World Championship in San Sebastian, Spain, suggested that his choice was a very good one. A year later, at the World Championships in Montreal, Canada he was able to defeat all his opponents and become the holder of the Rainbow master jersey World Champion.
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Wikipedia