2004 GLOBAL GAMES

International Sports Federation for People with an Intellectual Disability (INAS-FID) organizes Global Games as a substitute to the biggest sport event of handicapped since the prohibition of athletes with an intellectual disability from Paralympics in 2001.

First Global Games took place in the same year as following Paralympics (Athens, 2004) from 25^th July to 3^rd August 2004 in Swedish town of Bollnäs. More than 1,000 active athletes from 40 countries competed in athletics (3 Czech representatives), swimming (2), table tennis (4), tennis (4), basketball and football. Our representatives were most successful in tennis where they managed to win gold medal in doubles (Haman-Hus) and silver in singles (Haman).

Organization of first Global Games reflected importance of the event and media were highly interested in the Games. The visitors unfortunately showed smaller interest in the Games, which was among other things consequence of the type of stadiums used. Most of the competitions took place at school playgrounds without tribune and with insufficient capacity, the only exceptions were athletics and basketball stadium. Czech representation at first Games consisted of 13 athletes and it cannot be said that anyone of the representatives failed at the first international event. Almost all of them reached their personal maximums in their performances and many of them managed to improve their existing maximums, which was true especially for swimmers.

Swimming
Races were taking place in 25 m swimming pool with six lines, 42 men and 32 women from 23 countries from all over the world took part in the races. Participants of previous summer Paralympics (Sydney, 2000) took part because swimming of mentally handicapped together with athletics had been included in the programme of games since 1996. Czech representatives took part in 9 races: Radek Imramovský swam in 5, Lucie Čivrná in 4.

Results of Czech representatives:
Radek Imramovský
100 m breaststroke    9th place         1:24,49
50 m   breaststroke    9th place         37,90
200 m breaststroke    7th place         3:10,15
50 m   freestyle          25th place       29,80
50 m   butterfly          23rd place       33,42

Lucie Čivrná
50 m    freestyle         17th place       36,87
50 m    backstroke      10th place       41,93
100 m  freestyle          16th place      1:24 9
100 m  backstroke        9th place       1:36,66

Tennis
Tennis tournament included men’s and women’s singles and doubles as well as a knockout mixed doubles tournament. Matches were played at four Tenisklub Bollnäs tennis courts. The Czech Republic was represented by four tennis players (Monika Fraňková, Jakub Jerhot, Josef Hus, Ladislav Haman), the most successful among them was the double Haman-Hus who won gold medal in doubles. Ladislav Haman who was carrying Czech flag at the inaugural ceremony added silver from singles.

Results of Czech representatives:
Women’s Singles
Monika Fraňková did not advance from a group of four. 
Men’s Singles
Jakub Jerhot did not advance from a group of five.
Josef Hus was in the same group like Ladislav Haman who was in the end more successful. While Hus did not advance into semi-final, Haman won his group after four victories (J. Hus, CZE; L. Dias, POR; P. Baraczyk, POL; Scott Crowden, AUS).
Semi-final: Ladislav Haman (CZE) vs. Shawn Walford (AUS) 4:6, 6:3, T 7:5
Final: Ladislav Haman (CZE) vs. Hugh Enner (AUS) 6:2, 5:7, T 1:7
Ladislav Haman won silver medal for the Czech Republic.
Men’s Doubles
Jakub Jerhot with Portuguese Dias ended fifth.
Czech double Ladislav Haman, Josef Hus was successful, advanced into final and defeated 6:1 Australian double Walford, Enner in the final. The double won gold medal for the Czech Republic.
Mixed doubles
Czech double played in the knockout tournament. It however lost with Australian double Konings, Lunarduzzi 5:7 and ended without medal.

Table tennis
69 players from 19 countries (41 men, 28 women) took part in the table tennis tournament. Competition in mixed doubles was in accordance with ITTF rules cancelled, spectators could however watch men’s and women’s doubles, team competition and singles. Tournament started with matches in basic groups followed by knockout for three winning sets. The Czech Republic was represented by two women (Květa Telváková a Jiřina Kameníková) and two men (Jiří Strach, Jan Pokuta).

Results of Czech representatives:
Men’s singles
Jan Pokuta ended 3^rd in his group and lost possibility to advance further. Overall he ended 20th – 30th.
J. Pokuta vs. Takashi Takeda (JPN) 0:3
J. Pokuta vs. Jacek Paweski (POL) 0:3
J. Pokuta vs. Lorence Dias (POR) 3:1
Jan Strach was a great surprise of the tournament because he won his group and advanced into round of sixteen. In it he, however, lost with Ukrainian Bakanov (1:3) and ended 14^th.
J. Strach vs. Makato Higuchi (JPN) 3:1
J. Strach vs. Adam Thompson (GBR) 3:1
J. Strach vs. Attila Szabó (HUN) 3:2
Women’s singles
Both Květa Telváková and Jiřina Kameníková advanced from basic groups from second place.
K. Telváková vs. Victoria Bromley (GBR) 3:1
K. Telváková vs. Sunna Jonsdottir (ISL) 3:2
K. Telváková vs. Dorota Klecha (POL) 0:3
Jiřina Kameníková vs. Karen Blundell (GBR) 3:0
Jiřina Kameníková vs. Fatma Alnajar (SAE) 3:0
Jiřina Kameníková vs. Wai-ling Lai (HKG) 0:3
Jiřina Kameníková lost in the round of sixteen with future winner Victoria Romanovova from Russia 0:3 and ended 9^th.
Květa Telváková also did not manage to advance into further rounds after defeat with future bronze medallist Dorota Nowacka from Poland and ended sixteenth.
Doubles
Czech double Jiří Strach, Jan Pokuta got in the round of sixteen where it was stopped by seeded Japanese. The Czech double ended 5^th to 8^th from twenty participating doubles.
Czech female double Květa Telváková, Jiřina Kameníková ended the tournament on the same place as the men when it was defeated by Japanese in the round of sixteen.
Teams
Men: Ended second in their group and lost possibility to advance further and ended 5^th to 8^th.
Women: Ended third in their group, did not advance like men and ended 5^th to 8^th.

Athletics
Discipline of athletics of athletes with an intellectual disability was like swimming included in the programme of previous Paralympics (Atlanta, 1996 and Sydney, 2000). Male and female athletes could therefore gain new experience from big international competition, Czech representatives, however, did not achieve worldly results. Three of them were in Böllnas: Rostislav Spurný (5000 m, 10 000 m), Ondřej Gazsi (400 m, 5000 m) and Patrik Podolský (pentathlone).

Results of Czech representatives:
Rostislav Spurný
10,000 m run: 11th place (38:43,80)
5,000 m run: 17th place (18:20,02)
Ondřej Gazsi
400 m: did not advance from run-up (57,05)
5,000 m: gave up the race
Patrik Podolský
Long jump: 3,38 m
Javelin: 16,88 m
200 m: 25,43
Discus throw: 15,36 m
1,500 m: 5:05,40
He got 1,520 in total, ended 10^th from 11 athletes.