One of the most important diamonds in a person’s life is the family. There are many strong families in our sport and Bukartu is one of them. The Latvian hockey team will play this year’s world championship group tournament games in the Czech city of Ostrava, which forward Roberts Bukarts calls his second home. He has already spent four seasons in the Ostrava team Vitkovice, and the contract of both parties will be valid for the next two years. At the end of this season, Robert’s brother Rihards moved to the Ostrava team, and the two forwards got a good harmony in the same line. Bukarti, on the other hand, had a lifelong memorable fight in April, when Robert and Rihards were joined by their younger brother Rogers in the same line of forwards in the Latvian national team duel against Ukraine.
In this magazine, read an extensive interview with Robert Bukarts, who calls himself probably the most untalented hockey player in Latvia. “I have not been given any talent by nature. None at all. All my life I have been thin, weak, weak. I have no gifts of height to be better than others, I have no physical gifts, no gifts of speed. Everything I have, I have created myself ,” says Robert Buckart. He points out that often a diamond needs to be cut and polished.
A bright diamond in Latvian sports is the young alpine skier Dženifera Gērmane. Three winters ago, the athlete directly Sports newspaper gave her first interview to the Latvian media, however, even then she was struggling with injuries and the avalanche of health problems did not stop even for a long time after the interview. As recently as last winter, Jennifer suffered a concussion in training before the very start of the season, but despite this, there was a fantastic boom last season and she won eighth place in the World Cup competition three times. Considering how popular alpine skiing is in the world, this is a huge achievement. In addition, it happened in conditions where the young Latvian woman prepared her skis herself every evening.
“In the ski service room, you can see World Cup riders, but they have come to talk to the service people, not to prepare their own skis. Often, while making skis, I received confused and surprised looks from the service people, coaches and also some athletes,” in an interview published in this magazine Jennifer goes behind the scenes.
Also, many diamonds are found around athletes. This time we got to know four Latvians who visit every stage of the World Rally Championship (WRC) for work purposes – a mechanic, a racing engineer, a TV operator and a logistics manager in a fuel supply company. However, they are far from the only ones and the total number of us in the second most prestigious motorsport world championship is large. Understanding this, it is no surprise that the WRC stage will also come to Latvia this summer – a huge motorsport festival is expected in Riga and Kurzeme in mid-July. However, there is still some time before that. As every year, the most important event in May will be the world hockey championship, which is being awaited with special interest this time. Will the Latvian national team manage to show that the result achieved last year was not just a coincidence? Will we have a holiday again? It is difficult to answer these questions at the moment, but it is clear that the first three games in four days will be very important for Latvia, because in them we will meet opponents that we usually win more often. If we want to enter the quarter-finals, we should not lose points in these matches. The support of the fans will also be important for the national team, the hockey players hope that the atmosphere in the Ostrava arena will be similar to the one that was in Tampere last year in the third place match. “Is there much to do there? I would say no, but the fans who come for a week of cool time, I think, will have a lot to see and see,” says Ostrava expert Robert Buckart.
Whether you’re watching hockey at home on your TV screen or traveling to the Czech Republic, scroll down to find exciting and useful information about both the World Cup and the city of Ostrava.
