Pavel Maslak ended of his career at the Gold Label’s meeting in Ostrava

In October last year, multiple world and European indoor 400m champion Pavel Maslak announced his retirement from athletics at the age of 33, and yesterday he officially said goodbye to the Czech audience at the World Athletics Indoor Tour with a “Gold Label” in Ostrava.

The Czech star has made a serious career indoors, having won three European and three world indoor 400m titles between 2013 and 2018. He also achieved an extraordinary series of 15 indoor final wins between 2013 and 2017.

In 2014, Pavel Maslak triumphed with the world indoor title in 45.24 sec, and with this result until yesterday he was in third place in the all-time European rankings in the discipline. It was right in front of his eyes in Ostrava that Hungarian athlete Attila Molnar ran 45.08 sec, yesterday, thus displacing Pavel Maslak into fourth place in the all-time continental ranking of the discipline.

However, Pavel Maslak’s most memorable victory came a year later, when he won the European gold in the 400m in front of his home crowd in Prague with a new meeting record of 45.33 sec, and the first lap was completed in 20.99 sec.

Before becoming an indoor specialist, Pavel Maslak became the European champion in the 400m outdoors in Helsinki in 2012. He also has a silver medal from the Continental Forum Outdoors in Amsterdam in 2016.

Pavel Maslak’s last major appearance on a major stage was at the European Championships in Rome in mid-June, when he was eliminated in the 400m heats.