The coach of the Slovak Athletics Federation, Martin Pupiš, has informed the Federation that he will retire from this position on 31 October after ten years.
Martin Pupiš, 44 years old from Banská Bystrica is a former race walk leader in Slovakia with interesting personal bests of 1:23:46 in the 20km and 3:59:13 in the 50km.
As a very young athlete he had participated in 1997 in the U20 European Championships in Ljubljana (SLO) obtaining the bronze medal and then later participated in the 2002 European Championships in Munich. In 2000, he had obtained the standard entry limit for the Olympic Games in Sydney, but was not among the three athletes who participated.
Martin Pupiš studied at the UMB in Banská Bystrica as an athletics coach and physical education teacher.
After the end of his career, he became 1st class coach (fifth highest qualification level) and university teacher at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica (associate professor).
He is currently coaching Mirosav Úradník, 6th in the 2022 European Championships in the 35km walk, in the past he has also coached the Olympians Mária Katerinka Czaková (2012, 2016, 2021) and Kazimír Verkin (2004, 2008).
In the field of hypoxic training and walking technique, he also collaborated with other walkers (Matej Tóth, Miloš Bátovský, Anton Kučmín) and in the field of diagnostics with ski jumpers Dana and Jana Velďáková.
From 2012 to today, Martin Pupiš has been a member of the executive committee of the SAZ, chairman of the technical, methodical and health committee of the SAZ and from 2013 to date he has held the position of head coach of the SAZ. He led the Slovakian athletics team at the 2016 and 2021 Olympic Games, the 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2022 World Championships, the 2015 and 2019 European Championships.
"This decision has matured in me longer. I had asked to be released from my post last year after the Olympics, but we had then agreed that I would postpone it. But now I got to the point where I thought it was enough. In public space and in politics, we see that some people do not know when they should leave. I have now assessed how the moment was right," explained Martin Pupiš.
"It is my personal decision. I have excellent relationships with the entire team led by the union president, Peter Korčok. We are friends. I believe this change will benefit athletics. When someone has been doing something for ten years, they can't anymore give it the same effort as in the beginning. I also have relatively young children. My family, and especially my wife, have helped me realize my dreams in the past years, now I want to make her and my children's dreams come true."
SAZ president Petr Korčok was not happy with Martin Pupiš's decision to end his position as coach, but he accepts it.
"I take it as a fact, even if I don't identify with it. In 10 years he has done a huge amount of work, he has lived all the great moments since 2012: the Olympic gold of Mať Tóth, the medals of the sprinter Ján Volek. From the point of view of the results and the concept of the work, under his guidance we went very far. Together we realized the dreams we had as active athletes. Thanks to Martin for all this. He has something to be proud of", stressed the head of Slovak athletics. "The door to cooperation remains open in his case. I am convinced that we will continue to cooperate, at least in the field of education."