Petr Hubáček

"There were so many people that when the competitors finished, jumped down, and went on to the second round, the soldiers in charge had to form a passageway. People were walking up from below, so they made a passageway, the competitors passed through, and when the last competitor had passed through, they closed it and no one else could get through. It was impossible to pass through, the crowd would have swept them away. And when the races were over, there was this American photographer, he was tall, about two meters tall, with a beard. He was quite popular at all those races. Women in traditional costumes were dancing on the landing area, and Raška was dancing with them. And then someone shouted, "I haven't seen Raška yet!" So the two-meter-tall photographer hoisted him onto his shoulders and walked around the landing area with him. Unbelievable."

"The greatest experience was two years after Raška's victory at the Grenoble Olympics in 1968. Raška was a national hero. There were 120,000 people at the world championships, completely packed. And Raška competed. He came second twice, and the Russian Napalkov won twice. But Raška was still a legend. We were watching the jumps, and during one competition I was standing on the right side of the jumps on a little hill, thinking I would have a good view. But after ten minutes, I couldn't see anything because so many people had gathered there. During one round, I climbed a spruce tree, there was a pile of snow there and I climbed onto the branches. I sat there, with some Slovak behind me, and I threw snow on his head, but he didn't mind. So the two of us sat there."