Czech weekend news in brief: top stories for Aug. 8, 2021

Czech Republic celebrates best-ever performance in Summer Olympics

The Czech Republic has won eleven medals at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, with four golds, four silvers and three bronzes. With the medal count, the Czech team celebrates their biggest success at Summer Olympic since 1993, when the independent Czech Republic was established.

The Czech Republic's flag bearer at the Tokyo Olympics closing ceremony today will be javelin thrower Jakub Vadlejch, who won a silver medal at the games on Saturday. The closing ceremony of the 32nd Summer Olympic Games wills start on Sunday at 1 p.m. Prague time. At the opening ceremony, the flag was jointly carried by tennis player Petra Kvitová and basketball player Tomáš Satoranský. In the men's javelin throw, the bronze medal was also won by a Czech, Vítězslav Veselý.

47th annual Summer Film School kicks off in Uherské Hradiště

The 47th annual Summer Film School, a film festival staged by the Czech Association of Film Clubs, has commenced in Uherské Hradiště this weekend with Slovak actor Martin Huba and Czech actress Jiřina Bohdalová awarded annual prizes. The Summer Film School will screen 170 films through August 12, along with theater performances, concerts, and exhibitions.

Huba, 78, received the prize for his elegance and gentility as well as his influenced at cultural events in Slovakia as well as the Czech Republic. Huba played the first Czechoslovak president, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, in a recent film and a TV series. Bohdalová, 90, could not attend the festival in Uherské Hradiště due to her busy schedule. The prize was accepted on her behalf by filmmaker Jaroslav Sedláček.

Covid-19 rise would harm current government parties in elections, experts predict

A possible rise in the number of Covid-19 cases in September and early October could impact the political parties that currently lead the Czech government in the October general election, political analysts addressed by CTK have have agreed. According to Lubomír Kopeček, from Brno's Masaryk University, a deterioration of the epidemiological situation could remind people of the situation during the second and third waves of coronavirus, and it could also discourage some elderly voters from turning up at polling stations to cast their ballot.

"Both aspects might harm the ANO party [of incumbent PM Andrej Babiš]. Pensioners make up about half of its voters," Kopeček said. "I don't dare estimate the pandemic's impact on the election result, but it could be strongly influenced by the epidemiological situation in September and early October," said Josef Mlejnek from Charles University in Prague.

Number of Czech kindergartens rises in 2020-21, with fewer children in attendance

The number of children in Czech kindergartens fell by 7,300 to 357,600 in 2020-21 compared to the previous school year, after several consecutive years of rising. The number of kindergartens themselves, however, increased by 13 to 5,317, according to new stats released by the Czech Education Ministry. A total of 159 new kindergartens have appeared since 2014-15, when the number of children in these facilities peaked. The decline in the number of children in kindergartens was the sharpest in 2020-21 out of the past 15 years.

Birth rates started rising in the Czech Republic after the turn of the millennium, and peaked around 2008. In reaction, the number of kindergartens started rising as of 2007, and the number of children in them reached a high of 367,603 in 2014-15, when there were 5,158 kindergartens in the country.

Czechoslovak coins and banknotes loaned by Prague to be displayed in Dresden

Coins, banknotes, and medals from Czechoslovakia (1918-1992) will be put on display by the Dresden State Art Collections from August 14. Part of the exhibit has been loaned by the National Museum in Prague, and will be shown in Germany for the first time.

The exhibition highlights important phases of Czechoslovak history, including the establishment of Czechoslovakia at the end of WWI, the forced cession of its German-inhabited border regions (Sudetenland) to Hitler's Germany in WWII, the Prague Spring 1968 communist reform movement, the anti-communist Velvet Revolution of 1989, and the split of the Czechoslovak Federation in 1993.