‘The fan is part of the team’. So says the championships motto you can read on banners all around the 02 Arena. How true.
How true in Prague, anyway, for the fans certainly played their part for team Czech Republic this afternoon as Pavel Maslák delivered the host nation’s first gold of the European Athletics Indoor Championships to the ear-splitting sound of 10,000 Czechs roaring him round two blitzkrieg laps of the track.
Not just gold, mind you, but a championships record of 45.33. Run from the front, eyeballs out, no holding back, Maslák did what the fans had come to see – in spades.
And how they loved it. Madonna and Motley Crue are just two of the many bands to have played this arena since it opened in 2004, but it can rarely have heard a noise as loud as the deafening screams which greeted the sight of their hero as he crossed the line, arms wide in triumph.
“I think I was a little bit over-motivated today, but the atmosphere and the support was unbelievable,” he said.
Indeed it was. Dozens of Czech flags hung expectantly all afternoon from the railings and balconies that circle the tiers of seating. As for those seats, there was barely an empty one in the house as the programme ticked round through three hours of enthralling, record-breaking action towards the 400m finals.
This was the Czech’s big night. Their big hero, their one defending champion came to deliver gold in their own stadium. And, they hoped, the bonus of seeing Denisa Rosolová deliver a medal in the women’s 400m.
It didn’t happen for her, but Maslák was true to his word – and everyone else’s expectations.
Fortuitously – or by design, who knows? – the crowd was warmed up nicely by Renaud Lavillenie, whose championships record in the pole vault came just before the start of the 400m finals. And whose last of three close-shave attempts at the world record had the entire stadium on its feet clapping rhythmically just seconds before Maslák’s race.
You couldn’t have asked for a better set-up. But the pressure on Maslák must have been huge. Not that he appears to feel it, for the 24-year-old is coolness personified.
His name was greeted by screams, whistles, cheers and claps, but he put his finger to his lips and called for hush as he settled into the blocks. He kissed his gold necklace and went to his marks.
He said two days ago that his title defence was going to be easy. And he made it look that way, screaming away in lane five and blasting through the half way point three metres up in 20.99.
Belgium’s Dylan Borlée did his best to close the gap, but Maslák was having none of it. He kicked again down the back straight and powered off the final bend 10 metres clear.
He won by almost nine tenths of a second, yet there were personal bests for the athletes who trained in behind him in second third and fourth as Borlée clocked 46.25 for silver, while Poland’s Rafal Omelko ran 46.26 for bronze ahead of his teammate Lukesz Krawczuk.
“I was in much better shape compared to the Gothenburg championships so I was not that nervous,” said Maslák. “But mentally it was much more difficult than in 2013.
“I am very thankful I had the chance to please the home crowd and to feel such an emotional atmosphere.”