Eva Bosáková

Eva Bosáková

Eva Bosáková circa 1960
Personal information
Born	(1931-12-18)18 December 1931 Mladá Boleslav, Czechoslovakia
Died	10 January 1991(1991-01-10) (aged 59) Prague, Czechoslovakia
Sport
Country	Czechoslovakia
Medal record Olympic Games 1960 Rome Balance Beam 1956 Melbourne Balance Beam 1960 Rome Team 1952 Helsinki Team World Championships 1958 Moscow Floor Exercise 1962 Prague Balance Beam 1954 Rome All-Around 1954 Rome Balance Beam 1954 Rome Floor Exercise 1958 Moscow Team 1958 Moscow All-Around 1958 Moscow Uneven Bars 1962 Prague Team 1962 Prague Uneven Bars 1954 Rome Team European Championships 1957 Bucharest Balance Beam 1957 Bucharest Floor Exercise 1959 Krakow Floor Exercise

Eva Bosáková-Hlaváčková, née Věchtová (18 December 1931 – 10 January 1991) was a gymnast from Czechoslovakia whose career spanned at least from the 1954 World Championships to the 1962 World Championships. Her father was also a gymnast for the Czech national team at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

During the time period of 1958-1962, Bosakova and her famous teammate Věra Čáslavská were always the two highest-scoring Czechoslovakian women gymnasts at the largest, most prestigious championships during those years - the 1958 World Championships, 1959 European Championships, 1960 Olympics, 1961 European Championships, and 1962 World Championships. As a very strong "one-two punch", they continued the Czechoslovakian legacy in the sport of Women's Artistic Gymnastics established by the sport's first-ever Women's World All-Around Champion Vlasta Děkanová, and others such as Zdeňka Veřmiřovská, Matylda Pálfyová, and Zdeňka Honsová. Bosáková and Čáslavska led the Czechoslovakian women's gymnastics team to three successive World/Olympic silver medals in a row (1958 Worlds, 1960 Olympics, 1962 Worlds), therefore being the foremost challengers to the dominant Soviet women's team during that era.

Grave of Eva Bosáková at Vinohrady Cemetery in Prague

On balance beam, where she is credited for being the first woman gymnast to compete a cartwheel (at the 1956 Olympics), she was World (1962) and Olympic (1960) champion, and she was good enough on all four events combined to become All-Around silver medalist at two consecutive World Championships (1958, 1962).

After her competitive career was over, Bosakova became a member of the Czechoslovak Song and Dance Ensemble and later became a coach in her home country. She starred in the 1963 film Something Different, directed by Věra Chytilová.

See also

• List of top medalists at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships

External links

• "Czechoskovak Life - Eva Bosakova". Gymn Forum. 2002-04-25. Retrieved 2017-01-06.
• "Results : Gymn Forum". Gymn-forum.net. Retrieved 2017-01-06.
• "Innovators in Gymnastics". Gymn Forum. 2004-04-02. Retrieved 2017-01-06.