Hana Vlasáková

Hana Vlasáková first took up volleyball while she was at school in Holešovice, with the team winning the Praha Youth Sports Games in 1962. By 1967 Vlasáková was playing for Tatran Střešovice where she won two national championships (1969, 1970). She then played for Technika Brno for one season before returning to Tatran Střešovice until 1977, during which time she won two more national championships (1972, 1973).

Vlasáková played for the Czechoslovak women’s national team from 1968 until 1975, competing at two Olympic Games, with the team finishing in sixth place in Mexico City and seventh place in München. Her best result with the team came at the 1971 European Volleyball Championships when they finished second to the Soviet Union.

Following her playing career Vlasáková turned to coaching and went to Italy in 1978 to work with the university club CUS Macerata. She remained in Italy for more than a decade, eventually becoming the head coach of both the youth and men’s teams of Infissiplastic Treia. By 1991 she had returned to Praha where she began her own tourist company. Vlasáková’s brother Oldřich Vlasák was a wrestler who competed at the 1972 München Olympics.