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On
the last Sunday of June 1975, at exactly two
o'clock, all two hundred thousand spectators
in the Strahov Stadium rose up as the fanfares
announced the arrival of the president of
the CSSR, Gustav Husák, to the honor
tribune. Once the president with his aging
politburo, dressed in suits as grey as the
sky that day had sat down, the first tones
of Smetana's My Country, played from two hundred
underground loudspeakers, introduced the performance
of female gymnasts. Twelve thousand and ninety
six women dressed in blue miniskirts holding
white clubs performed gymnastic exercise symbolizing
the beauty of the country. After 24 minutes
of the performance parents, carrying their
three to six year old children, filled the
stadium…Accompanied by passionate applause,
the children left the stadium on the (right)
shoulder of their mothers waving to the crowd
with white scarves. Husák wiped away
a tear. When they had left the stadium, a
few seconds of silence followed. Suddenly
it was broken by three units of jet aircraft
flying right over the stadium. Through the
three gates of the Strahov Stadium, the first
lines of sun-tanned male bodies appeared dressed
only in 'snow-white' shorts. Salvo. With a
roar the soldiers ran to fulfil the order
described by a reporter from the Herald Tribune
who was present on that day: "As one
wave sank, another rose and a third was forming.
Then suddenly, when this living ocean had
covered the 60,000 square meter field, the
soldiers stopped dead in their tracks, then,
seconds later, launched into a performance,
which drew gasps of admiration -and sometimes
fright - from the crowd. Human trampolines
sent young men soaring into the air. In another
part, musical accompaniment built up into
a crescendo as the soldiers formed themselves
into tall pyramids." |