X-Bionic Summer Tour 2017 is a premier equestrian event in Samorin, Slovakia taking place at the end of July and it’s spread across 8 race days. I always enjoy visiting beautiful equestrian resort and the annual summer events. Unfortunately this year, the author of the courses did not have photographers in mind. Almost every obstacle was positioned for shooting into the Sun. The rest of them could’ve been placed better. This year’s photostory was saved by two evening sessions.
Thanks to roller skis and paved roads in and around arenas, biathlon is also a summer sport. The 2017 Summer Biathlon Championships of Slovakia on roller skis took place at National Biahlon Center in Osrblie on July 22nd and 23rd.
Photos and results from July 22nd: Men’s Sprint Champion: Tomas Hasilla, Women’s Sprint Champion: Paulina Fialkova, Men’s Junior Sprint Champion: Simon Bartko, Women’s Junior Sprint Champion: Veronika Machyniakova.
P-T-S was a renowned athletics meeting held for 50 years in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. It was part of IAAF Grand Prix elite category and always featured strong field of athletes. In 2016 it was renewed and relocated to beautiful X-Bionic Sphere Resort near Bratislava and it’s once again the top athletics event in Slovakia. The 52nd edition, held on 17th June 2017, featured a variety of competitions. The results were affected by cloudy weather and strong wind.
Events photographed:
Last Saturday of May 2017 was dedicated to aviation – at least in small village of Dubová in Little Carpathians, Western Slovakia. The local grass runway was the starting point of various propeller powered aircrafts and helicopters. The performers included Peter Besenyei, a Red Bull Air Race legend and pioneer, The Flying Bulls Aerobatic Group as well as various pilots from Slovakia and Czech republic.
Empire Slovak Open 2017 – the largest women’s tennis tournament is Slovakia saw some amazing battles. This ITF Event with the prize money of 100 000 dollars is often a lauching pad in the careers of young tennis players. I believe this year we’ve seen the future superstars of women’s tennis in Trnava. Marketa Vondrousova of Czech republic (17 years old) claimed the title, defeating Veronica Cepede Royg of Paraguay. With this victory Marketa broke into Top 100 for the very first time and continued her impressive match record. In the first 5 months of 2017, Marketa managed to win 47 matches and recorded only 6 loses. Anastasia Potapova of Russia (16 years old), who is currently the Junior number one, made another notable appearance. She lost to Cepede Royg in a very close semifinal match.
Viktoria Kuzmova recorded the best result for a Slovak player this year with 2nd round loss to Heather Watson. Watson and her british colleague Naomi Broady captured the doubles title. They defeated Renata Voracova and Chia-Jung Chuang in straight sets.
Slovak Fed Cup Team Played the 2017 Fed Cup World Group Play Off Tiea against Team Netherlands on April 22. – 23. Due to the injury of Dominika Cibulkova, the Dutch led by World No. 20 Kiki Bertens were a favorite of this match. In the end, Bertens and Richel Hogenkamp managed to secure 3 necessary points. Netherlands won the tie 3:2 and advanced to the 2018 Fed Cup World Group 1.
Prior to Sunday’s matches, Daniela Hantuchova received Fed Cup Commitment Award as the first female tennis player from Slovakia. It is awarded to players who have shown long-standing dedication to Fed Cup competition and played a minimum of 20 World Group ties or 40 ties at any level of the competition over the career. Daniela has been playing in Fed Cup since 1999 and she led the Slovak team to Fed Cup Victory in 2002.
At the beginning of August 2007, I visited Venice for the first time. It was a dream come true to visit one of the most unique cities in the world. However, back in the day I only owned two usable lenses and the widest of them was 50mm. It was fun not only to create photos that are somewhat different from the traditional tourist photos, but also getting back to them after almost a decade. Some of the photos didn’t make it due to my increased standard for technical quality. Some had to stay in despite their poor quality due to their significance and some photos were developed for the first time since they were captured.
Elina Svitolina, currently No. 10 in WTA Tour Ranking and member of Empire Tennis Academy currently spends a few days in Trnava, Slovakia. On April 1st she met tennis fans and media representatives during the Academy’s Kids Day. She also spent the previous afternoon training with the young members of TC Empire Trnava. The kids were eager to show their talent to Elina and tried their best shots (notably the boy in yellow t-shirt).
Shot for: Empire Tennis Academy and Tennis Arena Magazine.
The relocated 2017 Youth/Junior World Championships in Biathlon began today in Osrblie, Slovakia with invididual races for Youth racers. Leo Grandbois of Canada claimed the gold medal in very difficult rainy conditions, besting Said Karimulla Khalili of Russia and Danilo Riethmueller of Germany. Miroslav Pavlak (bib no. 79) the member of Slovak Biathlon Team and Stars For Stars unfortunately didn’t have the best day, finishing 79th with 10 penalty minutes. This will most likely be my only attendance of this event so this gallery is considered to be final.
Czech tennis player Lucie Safarova is the newest member of Empire Tennis Academy Trnava. Lucie is the 2015 Roland Garros Ladies Singles finalist, four times Grand Slam Doubles Winner with Bethanie Mattek-Sands, current no. 2 in WTA Doubles ranking (as of February 13th) and multiple Fed Cup winner. A small introductory press conference to the media was held on February 13th at Hotel Empire in Trnava.
