U.S. OLYMPIC FESTIVAL : Batlik Paddling Same Boat That Brought Him to Safe Harbor

There are faster canoes than the one that belongs to Jirka Batlik. Sunday afternoon in the finals of the U.S. Olympic Festival 500-meter one-man sprint, there were four of them.

But to Batlik, it’s still a special vessel.

He calls it his lifeboat.

Fourteen years ago, that canoe carried him to freedom, from behind a curtain that was still iron and from under a fist of the same mettle. Batlik spent the first 23 years of his life in Prague, Czechoslovakia, most of them devoted to finding a way out.

“I’d been planning it since 1968, when the Russians first came in,” Batlik says. “It was awful. Very bad. I was 15 at the time and a friend of mine got killed, right before my eyes. I’d known him for 14 years. We went to preschool together. I saw a lot of blood. . . . Horrible things happened.

“I didn’t know anything about the United States, but I said, ‘There’s got to be a better place to live than this, being under the gun all the time. It was then that I decided to defect.

“I planned it many times. But I got to do it when I was 23.”

That was in December of 1976, two days before Christmas. As a member of the Czech national canoe team, Batlik was granted permission to travel to Linz, Austria, for the European championships.

Batlik only got as far as Innsbrook.

“I never made it to the site,” he says. “I had made friends with some Austrian paddlers the year before and we had it all arranged. I got across the border and split. The Austrians took me to Innsbrook and I stayed there, hiding. I was scared. I knew the Communists would be after me.”

Batlik had already been gray-listed by the party. “I was very outspoken against the Communists,” he says, “and I was never allowed to compete in Western Europe. They knew how I felt. If the race was in Poland or Hungary or Russia, I could go. But France or Sweden, no.”

And Batlik already had tried to defect once, in 1972, with three other Czech teammates. “We had the passports faked and everything,” he says. “But one of the guys talked about it and the police found out and took our passports. I thought I was never going to get out.

“I decided the next time, I was going to go it alone. Just me. Nobody else.”

Batlik remembers everything about that day, down to his parting words to his mother.

“I took my mom to work and when I dropped her off, I said to her, ‘I’m going to Austria,’ ” he says. “She didn’t say a word. She knew exactly what I meant.”

Batlik is pleased to report that his defection was easier than most. “I didn’t do anything crazy, like swimming a river or jumping a fence,” he says with a grin. “I wasn’t going to take a chance and get killed, although if I knew then what I know now about America, I would’ve taken any chance.

“I’d seen America in the movies and from talking to some of our athletes who travelled. I wanted to go there and live a better life--not financially or for personal gain, but just to be able to do this, to do that without having to ask permission.

“I wanted that kind of life and I chose one of the ways most acceptable to get there--sports.”

Two months later, Batlik was in California, trying his hand at a variety of odd jobs. He washed dishes. He painted houses. He repaired motorcycles. His oddest job, though, was helping engineer the defection of his parents, Vladimir and Maria. Once they obtained a vacation visa, as per Batlik’s instructions, they followed the same route as their son--take a left turn at Austria and don’t look back.

By early 1977, the Batliks had revolutionized their lives. After 2 1/2 years in Seattle, all three moved down the coast--Jirka to El Toro, his parents to Long Beach. Vladimir and Maria still live in Long Beach, where they manage an apartment complex.

Batlik, meanwhile, gravitated to what he knew best. A plumber by craft, he eventually found work with the Balboa Bay Club, where he is now chief engineer in charge of maintenance. A paddler by expertise, he continued to compete in canoeing, barely failing to qualify for the 1984 U.S. Olympic team.

“The Olympics have always escaped me,” he says with a touch of sadness. “In 1980, I had a very good shot at making it, but because I wasn’t in the United States for five years, I didn’t have my citizenship. It was a Catch 22--if I was to make the (Olympic) team, I would have been granted citizenship, but at the trials, they wouldn’t let you race unless you were a citizen.

“In ‘84, I went to the trials and missed by 1/100ths of a second. And in 1988, I was the next one to go, an alternate. It’s always just escaped me.”

Now 37, Batlik realizes he may never get there. But his wife, Shirley Dery-Batlik, has been there twice, in 1984 and 1988, and stands a good chance of returning. Sunday, Shirley won a gold medal in the 500-meter four-woman kayak and placed second in the 500-meter two-woman kayak.

As he helps Shirley train for 1992, Batlik says he can’t help indulging in a little whimsy himself.

“We’re starting to get five-ring fever,” he says with a laugh. “We both sat out 1989, but getting ready for the sports festival has given us the taste of it again.

“About me in ‘92, who knows? Maybe for myself, it will be too difficult because of my age. Everybody says, ‘You’re too old to do this.’ But physical age has nothing to do with it. Look at Martina. She got her ninth at Wimbledon. Great. And look at Mark Spitz. He’s training and going for it again. More power to him.”

He grins.

“Maybe it can happen to Jirka Batlik, too.”

Stranger things have happened. Batlik needs only look at his homeland and its recent democratization and the presidential election of popular, and Populist playwright Vaclav Havel.

“I never thought I’d see it in my lifetime,” Batlik says.

Last Christmas, Batlik returned to Prague. It was the 14th anniversary of his defection and just days after the birth of the new Czech government.

“Unbelievable,” Batlik says. “It was just after they elected Havel as president and they had a hell of a celebration. It was one of the best New Year’s I’ve ever had. I saw the happy faces there, I felt the hope they have.

“It’s going to be very difficult for them, but it’s so much better than what they had.”

Batlik has seen it from both sides. No one has to tell him which way to paddle.