Czech 400m specialist Pavel Maslak has announced his retirement.
During an international career that spanned 18 seasons, the 33-year-old earned a trio of world indoor 400m gold medals, becoming the only athlete in history to win three consecutive world indoor sprint titles.
He also notched up four continental crowns at 400m; three indoors and one outdoors.
Maslak’s international career began on home soil at the 2007 World U18 Championships in Ostrava. At the World U20 Championships one year later, he contested the 100m, 4x100m and 4x400m.
His first international medal came in 2009 when he earned 4x100m silver at the European U20 Championships in Novi Sad. He then made his first global final in 2010 in the 200m at the World U20 Championships.
It wasn’t long before he made an impact at the senior level. He set his first of many senior Czech records just three days before his 21st birthday, clocking a national indoor 400m record of 46.14. He came close to matching that when finishing fifth at the World Indoor Championships in Istanbul three weeks later.
His progress continued outdoors and he won the European outdoor 400m title in Helsinki. Little more than a month later, he broke the 45-second barrier for the first time with a national record of 44.91 in his heat at the Olympic Games in London.
He won his first of three European indoor 400m titles in 2013, while in 2014 he won his first of three consecutive world indoor titles over the same distance, doing so with a national indoor record of 45.24. That same season, he went on to reduce his own national outdoor record to 44.79.
Although he didn’t improve on his 400m times beyond that year, he remained one of the most consistent sprinters in Europe, particularly in a championship arena, and he continued breaking Czech records up until last year, his most recent one coming in the 4x400m (3:00.99) at the 2023 World Championships in Budapest.
A three-time Olympian, Maslak made his final international appearances earlier this season, competing at the World Relays in The Bahamas and at the European Championships in Rome.
