On a Tuesday morning, February 6, 2024, the main reception hall of the Town of Litoměřice’s Castle, just north of Prague in the Czech Republic, was full of visitors. More than 300 rowers, friends and ordinary citizens came to pay their respects to Zdeněk Pecka. Jiří Kejval, the former president of the Czech Rowing Federation and present Chairman of the Czech Olympic Committee, who is himself a fine sculler, referred to him a “good, honest man”, in a solemnly spare speech.

Zdeněk Pecka was a multiple Olympic and World championship medalist in the double and quadruple sculls. Later, he was a director of the international race course in Račice, and the long-time coach of another “good, honest man”, Václav Chalupa, who himself was also a multiple Olympic and World championship medalist, a three times World Cup winner and a 2012 recipient of the Thomas Keller Medal.

Zdeněk Pecka was the loving husband of Květa Jeriová-Pecková, an Olympic medalist in cross country skiing, and the father of two daughters. He passed away just short of 70 years old after a long illness.