{"id":41266,"date":"2026-04-13T18:04:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T16:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.curling.cz\/?p=41266"},"modified":"2026-04-13T15:45:48","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T13:45:48","slug":"from-juniors-to-seniors-the-unique-journey-of-tomas-valek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.curling.cz\/en\/from-juniors-to-seniors-the-unique-journey-of-tomas-valek\/","title":{"rendered":"From Juniors to Seniors \u2013 The Unique Journey of Tom\u00e1\u0161 V\u00e1lek"},"content":{"rendered":"

Curling has a roughly thirty\u2011five\u2011year tradition in the Czech Republic, so there are still not many curlers who have moved through all categories\u2014from the youngest, junior category (up to age twenty\u2011one), all the way to the senior category (over fifty). One of the players who has done that is Tom\u00e1\u0161 V\u00e1lek, who began his curling career as a junior in the skating arena Hasa in Prague\u2019s Vr\u0161ovice district, witnessed the birth of the Zbraslav curling hall, and today competes in senior competitions as well as in all other available categories.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

You are one of the very few Czech curlers who have gone through all categories from juniors to seniors. At what age did you start curling?<\/strong>
\nI started quite late, around the age of 19. All the more reason why I\u2019m happy I\u2019ve been able to experience the sport across all categories.<\/p>\n

How long have you been playing curling?<\/strong>
\nWith a few breaks, I\u2019ve been playing curling for about 33 years now, so it\u2019s actually a big part of my life.<\/p>\n

How old were you when you started, and what keeps you in the sport to this day?<\/strong>
\nI started around 19, and from the very beginning I was fascinated by the spirit of curling\u2014it\u2019s not just a sport, but also a strong community and a social experience. That combination is what keeps me in it even today.<\/p>\n

How do you see the development of the sport? I assume you began at Hasa Arena<\/strong> [which is not used for curling since the opening of the dedicated Roztyly Arena]. Did you help get the Zbraslav hall running as well?<\/strong>
\nYes, I started at Hasa in Prague-Vr\u0161ovice. We trained once a week in the evening, usually after 9 p.m., right after the figure skaters. From today\u2019s perspective, the conditions were almost comically modest\u2014we prepared the ice ourselves, drilled and poured the hacks by hand, carried the stones onto the ice before every practice, and stored them afterward. It was a bit of a \u201cguerrilla operation\u201d, but maybe that\u2019s exactly what made me develop such a strong bond with curling.<\/p>\n

The real leap forward came with the opening of the Roztyly hall<\/a>, which created much better conditions, especially for young players.<\/p>\n

As for Zbraslav<\/a>, I was involved from the very beginning\u2014from the preparations and construction to the first seasons when official competitions started being held there.<\/p>\n

You play mixed teams, mixed doubles, and traditional teams\u2014what do you enjoy the most, or does each format have its own charm? \ud83d\ude0a<\/strong>
\nI\u2019ve tried all these disciplines, and each has something special. But I still feel closest to classic team curling\u2014there, the sport is the most complex, in my opinion. I haven\u2019t had the chance to try the new triples format yet, but it definitely appeals to me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Curling has a roughly thirty\u2011five\u2011year tradition in the Czech Republic, so there are still not many curlers who have moved through all categories\u2014from the youngest, junior category (up to age twenty\u2011one), all the way to the senior category (over fifty). One of the players who has done that is Tom\u00e1\u0161 V\u00e1lek, who began his curling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":41248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curling.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curling.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curling.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curling.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curling.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41266"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.curling.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41266\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41270,"href":"https:\/\/www.curling.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41266\/revisions\/41270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curling.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curling.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curling.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curling.cz\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}