A vein that burst, the
compression, some major nerve segments irreversibly damaged and the
lower body getting paralysed. A new life in a wheelchair has just
begun. Step by step, courageously and tenaciously, many doors and
windows that seemed hopelessly closed, started to open. One of them
is named Trail Orienteering. Eight years later, through this door, a
golden light illuminates the lovely face of Jana Kosťová, currently
the World Champion of Trail orienteering in the Paralympic Class. A
winner in life as in sport who we proudly present as the Athlete of
the Month.
Name: Jana Kosťová
Country: Czech Republic
Discipline: Trail
orienteering
Career highlights: World Trail Orienteering
Championships (WTOC) 2013 – World Champion in Paralympic class. |
Jana Kosťová, Prague, Czech
Republic, born 4th October 1974, married with two children, corporate
fundraiser and event manager for Prague Wheelchair Sports Club. There
you are: in brief, some biographical notes of the new Trail
Orienteering World Champion in the Paralympic Class and the IOF’s
Athlete of the Month. Being outside in the countryside, travelling,
reading books and swimming – “no cold water, please” – are
amongst her major pleasures. And sport, of course: “I have always
been somehow connected with sport, although not always at a
competitive level”, she recalls.
It was in 2005 that the
unpredictable stroke occurred and a new life in a wheelchair began.
At some point in a long and demanding rehabilitation process, Jana
was faced with what, above all, represented an opportunity and a
challenge: “It was during a course where, over the week, those new
to a wheelchair could try different sports. Trail Orienteering was
part of the programme and it brought back my feelings about
orienteering”, says Jana. She started orienteering when she was 7,
but five years later she exchanged that for volleyball, which she
played until 19 when she injured her left knee. After that she played
sport at recreational level only. “When I recall my first
impressions and decision-making in TrailO, I have really moved
forward and learned a lot since then”, she says.
“There’s space for
improvement”
However Trail Orienteering wasn’t
exactly “love at first sight”. Flirting with orienteering and
athletics, Jana in 2009 took a personal decision by choosing another
‘sport’ called ‘baby’… that turned out to be twins (!). For
quite some time she couldn’t focus on anything else. Thanks to her
family and the strong support of her husband, she could slowly start
orienteering again, and now it is the only sport that she focuses on
and plans to stay with. “For me the special part was that,
suddenly, I could do orienteering again, return to it. And on top of
that, at international level. Despite the obvious limits, it offers
me the chance to move on, to travel abroad, to get to know foreign
countries, at least a little bit”, she says, adding that “there
is space for improvement, you learn all the time with every single
competition. But maybe I just haven’t been in TrailO long enough”
(laughs).
However, there are still some other
ingredients on this appealing menu: “I like being in forests and
orienteering is an opportunity. I like solving problems and that is
Trail Orienteering. And what is very important for me –
orienteering is a sport for everyone. The whole family can do it –
me in my wheelchair, my husband (he is now thinking of trying FootO),
and my kids. Hopefully they will like it and we will be participating
in competitions together”.
Competition and promotion
Let’s start from the beginning.
“Is there a relation between being paraplegic and being a Trail
Orienteer?” The answer is affirmative: “Yes, there is a
connection. I had to wait some time as I decided to have children
first. But then, shortly after their birth, I participated in my
first competition. I started slowly – one or two competitions
during the first year, then a few more in 2010 including my first
competition abroad, in Italy, then I tried to participate in every
possible competition in the Czech Republic, plus some more
competitions abroad, and I joined our representative TrailO team for
my first WTOC in France (2011). And my results weren’t bad at all,
I think.”
Since 2010 Jana has also been head
of the orienteering section of her club (Prague Wheelchair Sports
Club), which is actually the only one in the Czech Republic focusing
on Trail Orienteering, bringing together most of the wheelchair
competitors for this discipline. It’s also the only body in the
Czech Republic that can get some continual financial support for the
development of the discipline. Jana explains: “We try to
financially support handicapped people who attend local competitions.
Then we also work to find financial support for our whole TrailO
representation, where we now have sponsors – Teva Pharmaceuticals
and Avast.”
How to be a (good) Trail
orienteer
With or without disability, anyone
can be a Trail Orienteer, that’s for sure. But there are some
skills that you need to improve in order to be able to feel the
adrenaline of each mental challenge, rather than a tedious exercise
of reasoning. Jana left some ideas: “You obviously need to know how
to interpret the map and be able to read terrain very well. For this
you need to get experience. You need to have an eye for detail and be
able to distinguish which details are important. Then you have to be
able to focus and stay focused for quite a long time – for the
whole course. For me, when I lose concentration, I usually make
mistake(s)… and they are often stupid mistakes. Trail Orienteering
is mentally very demanding.”
When questioned about the hardest
part, Jana does not hesitate, pointing to one thing in particular:
“The most difficult part is to get into the course planner’s
mind, to assess from the very beginning his ‘zero tolerance’. And
also to see how precise and accurate the map is.” Opening her
heart, Jana is not afraid to expose some of her weaknesses: “My
real difficulty is trusting in my own feelings. My first thoughts are
usually correct, but then I check the other options just to verify my
first feeling and, sometimes, I create reasons for these new options.
Then I decide differently to my first choice and this is a big
mistake. You simply persuade yourself that you see what you want to
see. But I am improving (laughs).” But there’s even more, and
this time about her strengths: “I also think that one of the
difficult parts is not to look back to your previous decisions. I
simply try to forget the last control at the moment I punch the
control card. I don’t turn back, I let it go and move to another
task with a fresh mind. Maybe it’s just my thing… but it helps
me. And when I hear some of my friends, how distracted they are
because they made a decision, punched and then realised they had made
a mistake (for example) and it took them a long time (if ever) to get
over it, I’m really happy about this ability of mine.”
“Real competition is the best
training”
And here we are, on our way to
Vuokatti and the 10th World Trail Orienteering Championships, the
third in Jana Kosťová’s career. After a promising 11th place in
France (2011) and the 15th position in Scotland (2012), what
surprises were waiting for this athlete? To prepare for a World
Championships requires a high level of care and will certainly be
subject to a very specific routine. At least that’s what one
supposes is the thinking. But not in Jana’s case: “I need a
routine on the course when solving the tasks, but I don’t have any
special routine at home. When there’s an important competition
ahead, I try at least to do online games in the evenings, regularly.
Not every day, but as often as possible. But of course real
competition is the best training, so if there’s a chance I try to
participate.”
“The fact is that in the Czech
Republic there aren’t as many possibilities as in Scandinavia, for
example”, says Jana. This year in particular, the number of local
competitions was even smaller, but… “luckily there were online
games and then very intensive training and competitions in Italy
(June), and Lauri Kontkanen’s event in Selkie, Finland, just a few
days before WTOC. For me it was my first experience in Finnish
terrain and I’m happy we managed to get to Lauri’s event. It
certainly helped.”
“I was very nervous – I
wasn’t able to check my control card myself”
Was it Jana’s goal to win the
World title in the Paralympic Class, or did she not at all expect
such a tremendous result? “It was my wish – to get whatever medal
– once… but I know my competitors”, she says. “So I actually
quite surprised myself, especially on the first day. I simply wanted
to be better than in France, but the memories of last year’s
Championships were still present, especially the disaster of the
first day. After the first day of competition in Vuokatti I actually
saw myself there, on the podium, but I was just worried a bit not to
make stupid mistakes during Day 2.”
Being able to deal with the pressure
on the second day was the really big question. “I actually didn’t
really feel bigger pressure. It was there but nothing special. I
usually am a bit nervous before such important competitions and I
need it for a good performance, but after the start I jump into my
course routine and don’t think of anything else. I was however
nervous – very nervous – at the very end, when I had passed the
team time controls and came to the finish where everyone already knew
the solutions. I wasn’t able to check my control card myself – I
gave it to my colleagues to do it for me”, she remembers. “There
are always some controls where I’m not 100% sure about my
decision”.
“We are all Czechs”
The trail, the forest, the scenery,
the other competitors… These and other things are still well alive
in Jana’s memories. She brings me back to the ‘scene of the
crime’: “I felt very comfortable with the terrain and the style
of the course planner. Clear visibility in most areas and no high
grass or boulder fields made the terrain readable for me, for
example. High grass and boulder fields are not my friends when it
comes to interpreting contour lines. And these championships were a
lot about contours.” Jana mentions another important thing: “I
also kind of welcomed the difficulties of the trail itself – I know
that I work very well under pressure. The paths were sandy, not easy
for wheelchairs. But our assistants were incredible, they worked
really hard and I didn’t have trouble in moving around at all. OK,
it was physically demanding as I tried to help as much as possible,
but still no huge obstacles. So I actually enjoy bad paths!”
(laughs)
And then on the podium, her
team-mate Pavel Dudík on her right side, the Czech national anthem,
the FootO Czech team crying for her… a mountain of strong emotions:
“It was awesome, incredible, so memorable… I was truly happy to
hear people from both our TrailO and FootO teams in the audience. It
was a great moment and I felt this huge amount of support from them.”
But Jana especially recalls the moment when the Czech FootO team came
and joined the TrailO team for the ceremony, in what she defines as
“one of the best there has been, if not the best of all.” She
explains: “At that moment, I think it doesn’t matter in what you
actually win the medal. It kind of united all of us because we are
all Czechs and there were two Czech flags on the podium.”
“I don’t have high
expectations”
It’s hard to measure how important
a gold medal can be for the sport itself, for the Czech Orienteering
Federation, even for the country. At least, this is what appears from
Jana Kosťová’s words, mixed with some notes of pessimism: “Well,
we’ll try to use it as much as possible. Especially among people in
wheelchairs, to introduce them to this sport, to show them a new
world of opportunities, of challenges. If it helps to attract some of
them, great! But I don’t have high expectations. And maybe even our
own Federation will take us more seriously. But this is hardly
predictable.”
Coming towards the end of a pleasant
talk, I still want to ask if this victory is just something in sport
or is even more valuable, as an important step in Jana’s
rehabilitation process. And the answer appears in a very realistic
way: “It’s not about my physical rehabilitation, however you know
that rehabilitation is not only a physical exercise. For me and my
family it’s important that I don’t just sit at home and do
something I like. Which is very important for everyone, no matter if
you sit in a wheelchair or not. And the good thing is that I’m
improving, still learning and therefore not getting bored with the
discipline. So I will go on – there’s still so much to do… and
there will hopefully be no changes in my life – I like it as it
is!” One door closes, another opens, but Jana remains the same
person, despite the medal: “Personally, I don’t see any changes
because of the medal. Well, we will now try to publicise my medal and
get the most out of it – to let the Czech world know that we exist;
but with no great success, I’m afraid. If this effort helps the
discipline to get more fans, good, I would be happy. But I’m
realistic here.”
“My goals are more about the
quality of my performance”
The future is right now and, for
Jana Kosťová, it opens brightly. Starting with the discipline
itself, Jana considers that “we are going in the right direction,
especially with TempO. This can become more interesting not only for
younger orienteers, but also for an audience. Making it audience
friendly would help the discipline I believe.” Furthermore, “TempO
can be a way of getting more people involved. It’s faster and more
instantly attractive, whilst TrailO is more for those with this kind
of passion for perfection, accuracy and details. And it’s not easy
to find such people.”
And a last question, the one about
plans for the future. Another gold medal in next year’s
Championships? “I wouldn’t be that happy for the medal if I got
it with a poor performance. I was, actually, a bit happier for the
fact that my results were comparable to those at the top in the Open
class. It would be good to get another medal next year – I wouldn’t
say ‘No, thank you’ (!) -, but my goals are more about the
quality of my performance – achieving a clear course with no
mistakes, for example (that has never happened to me, yet), and to
prove to myself that this year’s result wasn’t just a one-off and
I’ll get at least close to it again. There is still a lot to do,
areas where I can improve and targets I’ll try to reach.”
Text and photo: Joaquim Margarido
